He laughed merrily, now, and Mlle. Nadiboff turned away her head to
conceal the tears of vexation that started to her eyes.

"Bah!" she thought to herself. "I have been wasting time--at Lemaire's
orders. The only way to induce this boy to betray his trust will be
by offering him presents of marbles, tops, kites--bah! _Bah!_"

Mlle. Nadiboff settled back in her seat, looking straight ahead, her
attitude as frigid as could be. For some moments she did not attempt
to speak. When she did open her lips she said, icily:

"I find that I have been wasting my time."

"Wasting your time, Mademoiselle?" echoed Jack Benson, coolly, for he
was much more fully alive to the situation, thanks to Mr Graham, than
she had any chance to know. "May I ask what you have been trying to
do?"

The question made the young woman bite her lip. Mlle. Nadiboff had been
a spy quite as long as Mr. Graham had stated. As she looked back over
the years she was able to recall man after man whom she had flattered
and lured by the witchery of her eyes. Secret after secret she had
coaxed from men entrusted with guarding such mysteries. The rewards of
the work had kept M. Lemaire and herself both bountifully supplied with
money by the foreign governments that they had served as spies. Most
men whom she had tried to win into her service the young Russian woman
had found easy enough victims. But now, here was a sixteen-year-old
boy laughing at her attempts at "cleverness."

"I was wrong to think Jack Benson a fool," she said to herself, angrily.