"
"_Mon Dieu_, Poynter!" boomed the Baron in exasperation, "you are
maddening. When you are politest, I fume and strike fire--here within!"
"Mental arson!" shrugged the Duke of Connecticut, relighting his
cigarette with a blazing twig. "For that singular crime. Excellency,
my deepest apologies."
The Baron stared, frowned, and laughed. One may know very little of
one's secretary, after all.
"You are a curious young man!" said he.
The Duke of Connecticut admitted that this might be so. Hay,
therapeutically, had effected an astonishing revolution in a nature
disposed congenitally to peace and trustfulness. Local applications of
hay had made him exceedingly suspicious and hostile. So much so indeed
that for days now he had slept by day, to the total wreck of his
aesthetic reputation, and watched by night, convinced that Miss
Westfall's camp was prone to strange and dangerous visitors.
Excellency no doubt remembered the knife and the bullet.
The Baron sighed.
"Poynter," he said simply, "to a man of my nature and diplomatic
position, a habit of candor is difficult. I wonder, however, if you
would accept my word of honor as a gentleman that I know as little of
this treacherous bullet as you; that for all I am bound to secrecy, my
sincerest desire is to protect Miss Westfall from the peculiar
consequences of this damnable muddle, to clear up the mystery of the
bullet, and for more selfish reasons to protect her from the romantic
folly of the man with the music-machine!"
Philip, his frank, fine face alive with honest relief, held out his
hand.
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