"I think," he said, "I calculate. And I build."

"What do you build?"

"It is a secret," he said.

"But you will tell me!"

"Why, Christine?"

"Because I do so want to know," she urged coaxingly. "And I can keep
secrets really. All English people can. Try me!" She thrust forward the
little finger of the hand that his arm held. "You must pinch it," she
explained, "as hard as you can. And if I don't even squeak you will know
I am to be trusted."

He took the finger thus heroically proffered, hesitated a second, then
put it softly to his lips. "I would trust you with my life," he said,
"with my honour, with all that I possess. Christine, I am an inventor,
and I am at the edge of a great discovery--a discovery that will make the
French artillery the greatest in the world."

"Goodness!" said Chris, with a gasp; then in haste, "Not--not greater
than ours surely!"

He turned to her impetuously in the darkness, her hands caught into his.
"Ah, you say that because you are English! And the English--_il faut que
les anglais soient toujours, toujours les premiers_--is it not so--always
and in all things? Yet consider! What is it--this national rivalry--this