Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/305

Rh had and have still a supreme contempt for the Continental police, and you can take it as a great truth that the reason there are no more big robberies in Europe is because people take better care of their dust. When a Frenchman gets a bone he buries it; he doesn't give it to some big dog to guard for him, the way we do at home. And as for jewels—well, if folks knew how few of the sparklers they see are the real thing they d stare at the moon in stead. There's plenty of petty graft in Europe, because the people are naturally suspicious and therefore suckers, but there's never such an awful lot of money in any one place; and when there is you're apt to find a couple of dozen people guarding it.

I took so long to answer that Ivan must have thought it was all fixed, for presently he said: "I am glad to see that, though you are a straight man in your dealings—just as I am when personal questions are involved—you are not, nevertheless, pigheaded. You kept your word at great sacrifice; and now, when this sacrifice has proved futile, you are quite at liberty to"

"To break my word?" I asked quietly.

Ivan gave me a startled look, then his eyes narrowed.

"So far as that goes," said he, "the person to whom you gave it considers that you have already broken it. To all practical purposes, Monsieur Clamart, you have broken your word to Mrs. Cuttynge."

"Perhaps," I answered; "but I have not yet broken my word to myself."

Ivan smiled. "Perhaps when you come to try