"We have kept it so confoundedly quiet that I am beginning to feel as if it is a crime." Steinmetz uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, and then spoke after mature reflection: "As I understand the law of libel, a man is punished, not for telling a lie, but for telling either the truth or a lie with malicious intent.

I imagine the Almighty will take the intent into consideration, if human justice finds it expedient to do so!" Paul shrugged his shoulders.

Argument was not his strong point, and, like most men who cannot argue, he was almost impervious to the arguments of others.

He recognized the necessity for secrecy--the absolute need of a thousand little secretive precautions and disguises which were intensely disagreeable to him.

But he also grumbled at them freely, and whenever he made such objection Karl Steinmetz grew uneasy, as if the question which he disposed of with facile philosophy or humorous resignation had behind it a possibility and an importance of which he was fully aware.