If anything is anybody’s very own, it is surely his past, or hers––particularly hers. But Nicky Easton was bringing one of the most wretched chapters of Marie Louise’s past to her very door. She did not want to reopen it, especially not before her new-found family. One likes to have a few illusions left for these reunions. So she said:

“Abbie darling, would you forgive me if I saw this––person alone? Besides, you’ll be wanting to get settled in your room, if Mr.––Ja––your husband doesn’t mind taking your things up.”

Abbie had not been used to taking dismissals graciously. She had never been to court and been permitted to retire. Besides, people who know how to take an eviction gracefully usually know enough to get out before they are put out. But Abbie had to be pushed, and she went, heartbroken, disgraced, resentful. Jake sulked after her. They moved like a couple of old flea-bitten mongrels spoken to sharply.

And of course they stole back to the head of the stairs and listened.

Nicky had his face made up for a butler, or at least a maid. When he saw Marie Louise he had to undo his features, change his opening oration, and begin all over again.

“It is zhoo yourself, then,” he said.

“Yes. Come in, do. I have no servants yet.”

“Ah!” he cooed, encouraged at once.

She squelched his hopes. “My sister and her husband are here, however.”

This astounded him so that he spoke in two languages at once: “Your schwister! Since how long do you have a sester? And where did you get?”

“I have always had her, but we haven’t seen each other for years.”

He gasped, “Was Sie nicht sagen!”

“And if you wouldn’t mind not talking German––”

“Recht so. Excuse. Do I come in––no?”

She stepped back, and he went into the drawing-room. He smiled at what he saw, and was polite, if cynical.

“You rent foornished?”

“Yes.”

He waved her to a chair so that he might sit down.

“Was giebt’s neues––er––what is the noose?”

“I have none. What is yours?”

“You mean you do not wish to tell. If I should commence once, I should never stop. But we are both alife yet. That is always somethink. I was never so nearly not.”

Marie Louise could not withhold the protest:

“You saved yourself by betraying your friends.”

“Well, I telled––I told only what the English knew already. If they let me go for it, it was no use to kill everybody, should I?”

He was rather miserable about it, for he could see that she despised him more for being an informer than for having something to inform. He pleaded in extenuation:

“But I shall show how usefool I can be to my country. Those English shall be sorry to let me go, and my people glad. And so shall you.”

She studied him, and dreaded him, loathing his claim on her, longing to order him never to speak again to her, yet strangely interested in his future power for evil. The thought occurred to her that if she could learn his new schemes she might thwart them. That would be some atonement for what she had not prevented before. This inspiration brightened her so suddenly and gave such an eagerness to her manner that he saw the light and grew suspicious––a spy has to be, for he carries a weapon that has only one cartridge in it.

Marie Louise waited for him to explain his purpose till the suspense began to show; then she said, bluntly:

“What mischief are you up to now?”

“Mitschief––me?” he asked, all innocently.

“You said you wanted to see me.”

“I always want to see you. You interest––my eyes––my heart––”

“Please don’t.” She said it with the effect of slamming a door.

She looked him full in the eyes angrily, then remembered her curiosity. He saw her gaze waver with a double motive.

It is strange how people can fence with their glances, as if they were emanations from the eyes instead of mere reflections of light back and forth. But however it is managed, this man and this woman played their stares like two foils feeling for an opening. At length he surrendered and resolved to appeal:

“How do you feel about––about us?”

“Who are us?”

“We Germans.”

“We are not Germans. I’m American.”

“Then England is your greater enemy than Germany.”

She wanted to smile at that, but she said:

“Perhaps.”

He pleaded for his cause. “America ought not to have joined the war against the Vaterland. It is only a few Americans––bankers who lended money to England––who wish to fight us.”

Up-stairs Jake’s heart bounded. Here was a fellow-spirit. He listened for Marie Louise’s response; he caught the doubt in her tone. She could not stomach such an absurdity:

“Bosh!” she said.

It sounded like “Boche!” And Nicky flushed.

“You have been in this Washington town too long. I think I shall go now.”

Marie Louise made no objection. She had not found out what he was up to, but she was sick of duplicity, sick of the sight of him and all he stood for. She did not even ask him to come again. She went to the door with him and stood there a moment, long enough for the man who was shadowing Nicky to identify her. She watched Nicky go and hoped that she had seen the last of him. But up-stairs the great heart of Jake Nuddle was seething with excitement. He ran to the front window, caught a glimpse of Nicky, and hurried back down the stairs.

Abbie called out, “Where you goin’?”

Jake did not answer such a meddlesome question, but he said to Marie Louise, as he brushed past her on the stairs:

“I’m going to the drug-store to git me some cigars.”

Nicky paused on the curb, looking for a cab. He had dismissed his own, hoping to spend a long while with Marie 165 Louise. He saw that he was not likely to pick up a cab in such a side-street, and so he walked on briskly.

He was furious with Marie Louise. He had had hopes of her, and she had fooled him. These Americans were no longer dependable.

And then he heard footsteps on the walk, quick footsteps that spelled hurry. Nicky drew aside to let the speeder pass; but instead he heard a constabular “Hay!” and his shoulder-blades winced.

It was only Jake Nuddle. Jake had no newspaper to sell, but he had an idea for a collaboration which would bring him some of that easy money the Germans were squandering like drunken sailors.

“You was just talkin’ to my sister-in-law,” said Jake.

“Ah, you are then the brother of Marie Louise?”

“Yep, and I couldn’t help hearin’ a little of what passed between you.”

Jake’s slyness had a detective-like air in Nicky’s anxious eyes. He warned himself to be on guard. Jake said:

“I’m for Germany unanimous. I think it’s a rotten shame for America to go into this war. And some of us Americans are sayin’ we won’t stand for it. We don’t own no Congersmen; we’re only the protelarriat, as the feller says; but we’re goin’ to put this country on the bum, and that’s what old Kaiser Bill wants we should do, or I miss my guess, hay?”

Nicky was cautious:

“How do you propose to help the All Highest?”

“Sabotodge.”

“You interest me,” said Nicky.

They had come to one of the circles that moon the plan of Washington. Nicky motioned Jake to a bench, where they could command the approach and be, like good children, seen and not heard. Jake outlined his plan.

When Nicky Easton had rung Marie Louise’s bell he had not imagined how much help Marie Louise would render him in giving him the precious privilege of meeting her unprepossessing brother-in-law; nor had she dreamed what peril she was preparing for Davidge in planning to secure for him and his shipyard the services of this same Jake, as lazy and as amiable as any side-winder rattlesnake that ever basked in the sunlit sand.

BOOK IV

AT THE SHIPYARD