THE GIRL IN THE CAB
As Jack reached the door of the United Service Club he found no one at
the doorway.
"That's strange," he muttered.
But in another moment he looked down the street. A hundred feet away
stood a closed cab. From it a woman leaned, beckoning slightly.
Had she been veiled, Jack would have been instantly suspicious.
But her face showed, and it was a young, fresh, pretty and wholesome
looking face.
"I don't know her, but she is very evidently a lady," thought Jack
Benson, quickly.
Accordingly, he stepped along the sidewalk, lifting his hat courteously
as he neared the vehicle.
"You are Mr. Benson?" inquired the young woman.
"Yes, madam."
"I trust you will pardon my calling here, and sending you a message. But
it was very urgent that I see you at once--how urgent you cannot yet
understand."
"I am here, madam," Jack replied; not knowing what else to say.
"I am going to make another strange request of you."
"It is granted in advance, if possible."
"Will you step inside with me, and drive a little way?" inquired the
young woman.
Jack glanced quickly at her. Her face was flushed; evidently she was
embarrassed.
"Won't you tell me a little more, madam, about your reason for wishing
to see me?" he suggested.
"Yes; but not here--_please!_" she begged. "I do not want to be seen
about here. I shall not detain you long, Mr. Benson. All I ask is
that you sit here beside me, and that we drive a little way, while I
say a few words to you."
Jack hesitated. He did not like the look of the adventure. Yet, on
the other hand, it was hard to see harm or danger in it. The young
woman was evidently, as he had at first guessed, a lady.
"Then you do not feel able to tell me, here, what you wish to speak
with me about?" he inquired.
"I shall begin as soon as we start on our drive," she promised. "Oh,
please do not refuse me. You cannot imagine how much is at stake--for
me!"
Though Jack Benson felt the peculiarity of the request from a stranger,
he was unable to see how harm could result from his being kind.
"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
circumstances.
"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 scrape
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 passion 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
"Mr. Benson," she cried, "this has gone too far not to have a full
explanation. Has--has Mr. Millard done aught to betray the United
States? For that matter, how could he?"
"Madam," Benson replied, gravely, "no Central American republic would
want charts of our fortified harbors, or notes concerning the
fortifications, the harbor mines, and so on, for the very simple reason
that no Central American republic would ever be equal to the task of
attempting to invade the United States."
"Did Mr. Millard steal such plans--make such notes?"
She hissed the question sharply, her face now deathly white.
"That is the charge against him," Jack nodded.
"Did he do it?"
"I caught him at it, opposite Fort Craven," young Benson answered.
A low, smothered cry escaped the girl. Her head rested against the side
of the carriage as though her brain were reeling. But at length she
spoke.
"You--you would not deceive me," she faltered. "Yet tell me more."
"I can't;" answered Jack, with a shake of his head. "Further than
that, I cannot go."
"Oh, I see," she nodded, "and I do not blame you. You feel that,
whatever you told me, I would tell him. But I wouldn't!"
Though the girl's face was still fearfully pallid, her eyes, as she
turned to gaze into the submarine boy's face, flashed with a new fire.
Then, after a brief pause:
"Whatever he is, or has done, I am an American," she added, quietly.
"This has been a miserable fifteen minutes for me." responded Jack
Benson. "I have been torn between the impulse to mind my own business,
and the fear that you may be throwing yourself away on a man whom you
would promptly learn to despise."
"I shall never give Donald Graves another thought as a lover," the girl
rejoined, promptly. "Nor shall I shelter him. I am going to him now!"
"Then you have an appointment with him? You know where to find him?"
"Yes," replied the girl, looking at the submarine boy rather queerly.
"Do you care to go with me to meet Donald Graves--the one you knew
as Millard? But I am stupid, or worse. That would be to run you into
needless danger--for such a man as I now know Donald Graves to be
would be desperate."
"I am not afraid of him," retorted Jack quietly. "If you fear only
for me, I beg you to take me to him!"