"Very good, then," he agreed. "I will do my best by listening to you."
After he had entered the cab, and had taken the seat, beside her, the young woman turned to look at him keenly.
Jack, for his part, saw that she was rather better dressed than the average. He imagined her to be the daughter of a family in comfortable circ.u.mstances.
"You do not know who I am, of course?" she began.
"No, madam."
"But you do know one in whom I am much interested," she continued.
For some reason that he could not explain to himself, Jack Benson began to feel very uncomfortable under the witching battery of her handsome eyes.
"Who is he?" inquired the submarine boy.
"You know him as--"
She paused, as though stricken with sudden reluctance.
"Well?"
"The name by which you know him is Millard."
Had Jack Benson been lashed at that instant with a whip he could not have been more astounded.
"Who?" he cried. "What? That in fam--"
He checked himself abruptly.
"It was kind of you to stop as you did," the young woman declared, gratefully. "The man whom you know as Millard is my promised husband."
"I"m sor--I mean, I"m astonished," sputtered Jack Benson.
Then he turned to take another keen look into her face.
"What do you want to say to me about Millard?" he demanded.
"I ask you--I beg you--to aid him to escape from Washington--from the country. Yet, to do that, all he needs is to get safely out of the District of Columbia. You know that he is here in Washington, or I would not have told you as much."
"Does Millard find it so very difficult to get out of Washington?"
queried Jack, grimly.
"If he did not, Mr. Benson, believe me I would never come to the enemy to beseech mercy. Probably I am not telling you anything you do not already know," she went on, rather bitterly. "But every avenue of escape from Washington is blocked by Secret Service men. It is not so difficult to hide in the city, but to get out of it is impossible--to-day."
"Madam," Jack answered, softly, "it would be my desire to give you every bit of aid and comfort possible. However, what you ask is simply impossible. For one thing, it would be in direct defiance of my--"
"Oath" he was about to add, but checked him self. On account of their knowing that he was to be sought at the United Service Club it was possible--even likely--that the enemy knew of his actual connection with the Navy. Yet, Benson did not propose to supply the other side with any gratis information. So he added:
"Contrary to my duty as an American. I am loyal to the Flag, madam,"
the boy continued. "Do you know the nature of Millard"s offense?"
"No-o-o-o; that is, not exactly."
"Do you wish me to tell you?"
"Why--he--he--told me it was some dispute over international affairs,"
stammered the young woman.
"Do you feel yourself a loyal American?" asked Jack, looking at her curiously.
"Yes!" she answered, without an instant"s hesitation, looking straight into his eyes, almost defiantly.
"And you love this man, Millard?"
"Yes!" Yet her declaration was not so emphatic as it would have been a few moments before.
Jack Benson sighed.
"Would you love a man who had betrayed his country"s flag?" he asked, presently, in a very low voice.
"Has Don--has the man you know as Millard offered to do that?"
It was not suspicion, but incredulity that rang in her voice.
Jack Benson knew, now, that he was dealing with a woman who knew herself to be a patriot--a lover of her country.
"I don"t know that I have any right to say anything," Jack answered, evasively. "Mr. Millard is a civil engineer, isn"t he?"
"Yes, and a mechanical engineer, too," the girl admitted, without attempt at concealment "As you also doubtless know, he served, once, with a revolutionary army in Guatemala. It is in some sort of sc.r.a.pe like this that he finds him self now. Some trouble that he has gotten himself into with this government in order to befriend the revolutionists of some Central American republic."
"Did Millard tell you so?" demanded Jack Benson, his eyes now very wide open.
"He let me believe as much," the girl replied, one hand toying with a fold of her dress, while she glanced down. "And that is the truth, is it not?"
"No!" broke, half-angrily, from young Benson. The pa.s.sion would have rung in his denial, but he remembered that he was talking to this girl about her betrothed husband.
"You spoke of the Flag a moment ago," cried the girl, suddenly, and gazing searchingly into the boy"s eyes. "Do you mean to tell me that Don--that Mr. Millard would be engaged in any work hostile to his own country?"
"Is the one we call Millard an American citizen?" asked Benson.
"Yes."
"Then--"
Jack came to an abrupt stop after that one word. He would not tell the dreadful news to this spirited young woman. It was not necessary.
But she became insistent