Irving walked on as if nothing unusual had occurred to disturb his peace of mind, and yet nothing more disquieting perhaps had ever moved the quakings of fear within him. If the man who had followed him could have looked into the face of the young second lieutenant in khaki as the latter passed the cafe, undoubtedly he would have seen there an expression of countenance exceedingly interesting to him.
The day was now rapidly drawing to a close, and the damp April atmosphere, chilly enough when the sun was at its zenith, was becoming cold toward night. Irving had no overcoat. He had worn only a flying-coat and "cover all," aside from his ordinary fair-weather garments, on the night of his ascent in an aeroplane and descent with a parachute, but he was not particularly uncomfortable even under present conditions. Still, he felt that it would be much more pleasant within four walls of a first class hotel, even though, as he suspected, the management was burning coal under war emergency limitations. So he hurried on, and did not slacken his pace until he was back at the hostelry.
About a square from the hotel he turned and looked down the street to see if the middle-aged man in citizen's clothes was still following him. Yes, there he was, 200 feet back, sauntering with a long stride, which rendered it possible for him to keep pace with the spy without an appearance of haste. As the latter entered the lobby and walked toward the elevator, he said to himself:
"I'll have to bluff it through. I'm not going to pretend ignorance of the fact that I've been followed. But I mustn't appear to be afraid of being watched. I must present the matter in a different light."
He knocked on the door of Vollmer's room, but received no response. Then he went to his own room to wait until his guide returned.
"I'll have to wait for him before I can get any supper," he mused. "I'm in a peculiar situation, and don't know exactly where I'm at. I think I'll have to have a plain talk with him tonight, much as I hate to rest any of my fortunes on his questionable goodwill."
Lieut. Vollmer returned at about 6 o'clock and announced without any formal greeting that they would go out to supper. Irving picked up his hat from the bed where he had thrown it on entering the room and signified his readiness to go at once.
He was eager to begin conversation on the subject that interested him most, but decided that he must await a favorable opportunity. His companion had relapsed again into unsociable aloofness, and the walk of three squares to the cafe where they had their luncheon was made without the passing of a word between them.
The meal, too, was eaten almost as quietly. Irving made a few attempts to draw his companion into conversation, hoping to lead up gradually to the subject that was weighing rather heavily on his mind, but he failed utterly. At last just as they were about to leave the restaurant, the young German lieutenant altered the aspect of affairs very much by saying:
"I'm going to leave you to your own devices now, Hessenburg. For anything you want, get in touch with the baron; he'll give instructions for taking care of you. They'll probably give you an army uniform and send you to the front to fight for the fatherland. I'm on a leave of absence and am going home to stay there until my leave expires."
Irving was stunned by this announcement from his uncongenial guide, who was about to leave him unceremoniously in the lurch. He did not know how to reply and so made no attempt to do so aside from the utterance of a few conventionalities, such as, "I hope you'll enjoy your furlough," and "I thank you for the courtesies you have shown me."
Lieut. Vollmer did not return with Irving to the hotel, but gave him a limp handshake out on the sidewalk, tossed a careless "aufwiedersehn" at him and sauntered away. The deserted spy went back to his room and passed an uncomfortable night, tormented with so many doubts of conflicting nature that he soon found himself in a very nervous condition. After he had lain awake an hour or two trying to clear up the obscurities in his mind, he decided that the course of thinking that he had permitted to sway him would result disastrously even if there was no reason for him to feel apprehensive of the outlook.
"I must throw this out of my mind and get a good night's rest," he told himself. "If my nerves are all shot to pieces tomorrow, it'll be folly for me to attempt to get any satisfaction from the government officials. They'll see there's something wrong, dead sure. I'm proving myself a mighty poor spy, and ought to have stayed in the Canadian trenches. Of course, I must expect to run into the most dangerous situations and depend on my wits, bluff, and nerve--yes NERVE--to get me out. What if I am under suspicion? If they have no goods on me, I'm safe enough so long as I don't convict myself by a guilty manner. I must be mistaken in my suspicion that they have found something wrong in that cubist art message. They'd 'ave arrested me right away if they'd discovered the change. I'll probably find everything all right tomorrow when I talk with the baron. Why, he may even decorate me with an iron cross. Hope it won't be too heavy to carry around, that's all. Or maybe they need all the iron to make shells with and will give me a leather cross--no, they need that for shoes; or a rubber cross--no, they need that to make rubber heels so they can pussy-foot out in No-Man's-Land. There! I've got my nerves in better shape; think I can go to sleep now, but I do wonder why that middle-aged man in civilian clothes was following me. I wonder if he wore rubber heels."
That was the way Irving managed to induce sleep an hour or two before midnight. He adopted the method very systematically and determinedly, and it worked. But his slumber was not as undisturbed as he would have had it, for he dreamed the most violent and mysterious of dreams enlivened and peopled with aeroplanes and booming cannon and minnenwerfers and parachutes and rubber-heeled secret service men who followed him so softly, gently, stealthily that it seemed as if even the thunder of battle was being toned down to zephyrs of inconsequential ghostly conflict.