Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/252

248 "You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless" A thought struck him, and he frowned.

"Unless?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her assurance.

"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful fellow"

"You wouldn't?" she gasped.

"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you are beautiful."

"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.

"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.

She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him, the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted to know.

"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."

The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.

"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is the most colossal crime—I suppose they will call it a crime—that has ever been committed."

"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even if you have a secret wireless."

"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fräulein, as you will see."

"But how will you escape?" she asked.