“After I’ve got Martin off I shall go along to Polivin’s. I’m sorry to leave you this evening. But you won’t mind, dear, will you?”
“Not at all,” was her prompt reply. “I know it is a duty.”
“I shall certainly not be back till one or two o’clock. They are a very late lot—the men who go there,” he remarked.
“I shall go to bed, so don’t hurry, dear.”
“Good night, then,” he said, crossing to her and bending till he touched her lips with his. Then he went along to the study, where the King’s Messenger was waiting.
“Halloa, Martin!” exclaimed his lordship, cheerily. “You’re up to time—you always are. You’re a marvel of punctuality.”
“I have to be, constantly catching trains, as I am,” laughed the nonchalant traveller, as he unlocked his despatch-box and took the seven big sealed letters from the Foreign Secretary’s hand.
Then he scribbled a receipt for them, packed them in a little steel box, and carefully locked it with the tiny key upon his chain. That box often contained secrets which, if divulged, would set Europe aflame.
“Don’t forget my camera next time you come over,” Bracondale urged. “And tell Sir Henry that if Bartlett is back from Persia I would like him to run over and report to me.”
“I won’t forget,” was Martin’s reply; and then, with a word of farewell, he took up his precious despatch-box and left the room.