"There are two great hotels where the boche gathers and plots; two great banking firms are centres of German propaganda; three great department stores, dozens of downtown commercial agencies; various buildings and piers belonging to certain transatlantic steamship lines, the offices of certain newspapers and periodicals.... Tell me, Barres, did you know that the banker, Gerhardt, owns the building in which you live?"
"You didn't know it, evidently. Yes, he owns it."
"Is he really involved in pro-German intrigue?" asked Barres.
"I ask," continued Barres thoughtfully, "because his summer home is at Northbrook, not far from my own home. And to me there is something peculiarly contemptible about disloyalty in the wealthy who owe every penny to the country they betray."
"His place is called Hohenlinden," remarked Renoux.
Renoux smiled. Perhaps he was thinking about other places, also--the German Embassy, for example, where, inside the Embassy itself, not only France but also the United States Government was represented by a secret agent among the personnel.
"We try to learn what goes on among the boches," he said carelessly. "They try the same game. But, Barres, they are singularly stupid at such things--not adroit, merely clumsy and brutal. The Hun cannot camouflage his native ferocity. He reveals himself.
"And in that respect it is fortunate for civilisation that it is dealing with barbarians. Their cunning is of the swinish sort. Their stench ultimately discovers them. You are discovering it for yourselves; you detected Dernberg; you already sniff Von Papen, Boy-ed, Bernstorff. All over the world the nauseous effluvia from the vast Teutonic hog-pen is being detected and recognised. And civilisation is taking sanitary measures to abate the nuisance.... And your country, too, will one day send out a sanitary brigade to help clean up the world, just as you now supply our details with the necessary chlorides and antiseptics."
"You are very picturesque," he said. "And I'll tell you one thing, if we don't join the sanitary corps now operating, I shall go out with a bottle of chloride myself."
They entered Dragon Court a few moments later. Nobody was at the desk, it being late.
"To-morrow," said Barres, as they ascended the stairs, "my friends, Miss Soane, Miss Dunois, and Mr. Westmore are to be our guests at Foreland Farms. You didn't know that, did you?" he added sarcastically.