Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/267

 "It is the best procedure," Mrs. Folwell said half seriously to Ruth upon her arrival, "to lay out all your correspondence upon your table when you leave the room so that it may be examined, in your absence, with the least possible disturbance. They will see it anyway."

Ruth was quite willing. Indeed, she was desirous of advertising, as quickly as possible, the presence of "Cynthia Gail." She had taken the trouble to learn a simple device, employing ordinary toilet powder and pin perforations through sheets of paper, which would disclose whether the pages of a letter had been disturbed. Accordingly she prepared her letters, and, merely locking them in her bureau drawer, she left them in her room. Returning some hours later, and unlocking the drawer, she found all her letters apparently undisturbed; but the powder and the perforation proved competent to evidence that secret examination had been made.

Of course examination might have been at the hands of allied agents; for Ruth did not imagine that the Germans and Austrians alone concerned themselves with war-time visitors to Switzerland; but she felt sure that the Germans had made their search also.

After breakfast the next morning Ruth met a man of twenty-eight or thirty—tall, reddish-haired, and with small gray eyes by name Christian Wessels, known as a Norwegian gentleman who had made himself agreeable to the Americans at the hotel. He was an ardent admirer of American policies and could repeat verbatim the statement of American war aims given by President Wilson to Congress three months before. He was a young man of culture, having graduated from the Swedish University of