The Spectator., 1916-04-28

butler into smile But he did not | remonstrate with her. In fact, he rather envied her freedom in emotion. Man cannot let go in that fashion; it is a sign of weakness; and he dared not let even Susan see any sign of weakness in him.
 So the reporter had found her, and | she was safe and sound and on her way to New York? Knowing by this time something of the reporters cour- age, he was eager to learn how the event had come about When he had not had a telephone message from Norton in 4S hours, he had decided that the Black Hundred had finally succeeded in getting hold of him. It had been something of a blow; for while he looked with disfavor upon the reporters frank regard for his charge, he appreciated the fact that | Norton was staff to lean on, and had behind him all the power of the press, which included the privilege of going | everywhere even if one could not all ways get back.
 AS he folded the telegram and put 1t into his pocket, he observed the man with the opera glasses over the way. He shrugged Well. let him watch till his eyes dropped out of his head; he would see only that which was intended for his eyes Still. it was irksome to feel that no matter when or where you moved, watching eyes observed and chronicled these movements.
 Suddenly. not being devoid of a !, sense of dry humor, Jones stepped | over to the telephone and called up l her highness the Princess Perigoff. l Who is it?"
 He was forced to admit. however reluctantly, that the woman had a marvelously fine speaking voice.
 Tt is Jones. madam"
 Jones'"
 MT. Hargreaves butler, madam"
 70. You have news of Florence?" Yes" It will be an embarrassing day for humanity when some one in vents a photographic apparatus by which two persons at the two ends of the telephone may observe the facial expressions of each other.
 What is it? Tell me quickly" Florence has been found, and she is on her way back to New York She was found by Mir. Norton, the report er'
 II am so glad Shall l come up at once and have you tell me the whole amazing story"
 Tt would be useless, madam, for l know nothing except what l learned from telegram I have just received. But no doubt some time this evening you might risk call.
 Ring up the instant she returns. Did she say what train?'
 No. madam" lied Jones, smiling.
 He hung up the receiver and stared at the telephone as if he would force his gaze in and through it to the woman at the other end. Flesh and blood We'll, greed was stronger than that Treacherous cat, Let her play; let her weave her nets. dig her pits. The day would come, and it was not far distant, when she would find that the mild eyed mongoose was just as deadly as the cobra, and far more cunning.
 The heads of the Black Hundred must be destroyed Those were the orders. What good to denounce them, to send them to a prison from which, with the aid of money and a tremen- dous secret political pull. they might readily find their way out? They must be exterminated, as one kills of the poisonous plague rats of the Orient A woman? In the law of reprisal there was no sex.
 Shortly after the telephone episode (which rather puzzled the princess) she received wire from Braine. which announced the fact that Florence and five had escaped and were coming to New York on train No. 25. and ad vised her to meet the train en route. She had to fly about to do It.
 When Captain Bannock released Braine, he had been in no enviable frame of mind. Tricked, fooled by the girl, whose mind was as unclouded as his own, She had succeeded in bribing coal stoker, and had taken him un- awares. The man had donned the dis guise he had laid out for shore ap- proach, and the blockhead Bannock had pever suspected. He had not rec ognized Norton at all It was only when Bannock explained the history of the shanghaied stoker that he real ized his real danger. Norton, He must be pushed of the board After this episode he could no longer keep up the pretense of being friendly. Nor ton, by a rare stroke of luck. had forced him out into the open So be 1t. Self-preservation is in no wise looked upon as criminal. The law may have its ideas about 1t. but the in dividual recognizes no law but its own. It was Braine whom he loved and ad- mired or Norton whom he hated as a dog with rabies hates water. With