"Chop it, Louisa!" The man called Capper lapsed into brusk English as he banged the stem of his wineglass on the damask. "No sense in raking that up again--just because I ask you a fair question--ask you to identify yourself in your new job."
"We go no further, Billy Capper," she returned, speaking swiftly in German; "not another word between us unless you obey my rule, and talk this language. Why did you get that message through to me to meet you here in the Café Riche to-night if you did not trust me? Why did you have me carry your offer to--to headquarters and come here ready to talk business if it was only to hum and haw about my identifying myself?"
The tenseness of exaggerated concentration on Capper's gaunt face began slowly to dissolve. First the thin line of shaven lips flickered and became weak at down-drawn corners; then the frown faded from about the eyes, and the beginnings of tears gathered there. Shrewdness and the stamp of cunning sped entirely, and naught but weakness remained.
"Louisa--Louisa, old pal; don't be hard on poor Billy Capper," he mumbled. "I'm down, girl--away down again. Since they kicked me out at Brussels I haven't had a shilling to bless myself with. Can't go back to England--you know that; the French won't have me, and here I am, my dinner clothes my only stock in trade left, and you even having to buy the wine." A tear of self-pity slipped down the hard drain of his cheek and splashed on his hand. "But I'll show 'em, Louisa! They can't kick me out of the Brussels shop like a dog and not pay for it! I know too much, I do!"
"And what you know about the Brussels shop you want to sell to the--Wilhelmstrasse?" the woman asked tensely.
"Yes, if the Wilhelmstrasse is willing to pay well for it," Capper answered, his lost cunning returning in a bound.
"I am authorized to judge how much your information is worth," his companion declared, leveling a cold glance into Capper's eyes. "You can tell me what you know, and depend on me to pay well, or--we part at once."
"But, Louisa"--again the whine--"how do I know you're what you say? You've flown high since you and I worked together in the Brussels shop. The Wilhelmstrasse--most perfect spy machine in the world! How I'd like to be in your shoes, Louisa!"