(If she had asked favors of me I don't doubt I would have scrambled to be useful.

I began mentally taking her part, wondering why Monty should treat her so cavalierly; and I fancy Yerkes did the same.) "Tell me the message, and I'll tell you whether I'll take it," said Monty.
She laughed again, even more bitterly.
"If I could tell it on these stairs," she answered, "I could cable it.
They censor cablegrams, and open letters in this place." "I suspect that isn't true," said Monty.

"But if you object to witnesses, how do you propose to deliver your message to me ?" he asked pointedly.
"You mean you refuse to speak with me alone ?" "My friends would draw out of earshot," he answered.
"Your friends?
Your gang, you mean!" She drew herself up very finely--very stately.

Very lovely she was to look at in that half-light, with the shadows of Tippoo Tib's* old stairway hiding her tale of years.

But I felt my regard for her slipping downhill (and so, I rather think did Yerkes).