I know nothing: what can I know? But I show you a
trick--if only to prepare you for any news--and you think it is very
serious. Oh no; do not be too hopeful--do not think it is serious--think
it was a foolish trick--"
And so, notwithstanding all that Brand could do to force some definite
explanation from him, Calabressa succeeded in getting away, promising to
carry to Natalie any message Brand might send in the evening; and as for
Brand himself, it was now time for him to go up to Lisle Street, so that
he had something else to think of than idle mystifications.
For this was how he took it in the end: Calabressa was whimsical,
fantastic, mysterious; he had been playing with the notion that Brand
had been entrapped into this service; he had succeeded in showing
himself how it might have been done. The worst of it was--had he been
putting vain hopes into the mind of Natalie? Was this the cause of her
message? In the midst of all this bewildering uncertainty, Brand set
himself to the work left unfinished by Reitzei, and found Ferdinand Lind
as pleasant and friendly a colleague as ever.
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