A fortnight later, a slender youth in khaki-colored clothes, with leggings, arrived at the Foreign Office, presented a paper to a sad-eyed messenger in the great hall, and was led to the disreputable old lift which, as usual, bore a notice to the effect that it was not working to-day. The sad-eyed messenger heaved the usual sigh, and led the way up three flights of broad stone stairs to a very dark waiting-room. There were three other young men in the room, but it was almost impossible to see their faces.
"Mr. Grant, of the _Tribune_, wasn't it, sir?" said the messenger.
"Mr. Martin Grant, of the _Chicago Bulletin_," said May Margaret, and the messenger shuffled into the distance along a gloomy corridor which seemed to be older than any tomb of the Pharaohs, and destined to last as long again.
In a few minutes, a young Englishman, who looked like an army officer in mufti, but was really a clerk in the Foreign Office, named Julian Sinclair, was making himself very charming to the four correspondents. To one of them he talked very fluently in Spanish: to another he spoke excellent Swedish, bridging several moments of misunderstanding with smiles and gestures that would have done credit to a Macchiavelli; to the third, because he was a Greek, he spoke French; and to Martin Grant, because he was an American, he spoke the language of George Washington, and behaved as if he were a fellow-countryman of slightly different, possibly more broad-minded, but certainly erroneous politics.
Then he gave them all a few simple directions. He was going to have the pleasure of escorting them to the front. It was necessary that they should be accompanied by some one from the Foreign Office, he explained, in order to save them trouble; and they had been asked to meet him there to-day for purposes of identification and to get their passports. These would have to be stamped by both the British and French military authorities at an address which he gave them, and they would please meet him at Charing Cross Station at twelve o'clock to-morrow morning. It was all very simple, and Mr. Martin Grant felt greatly relieved.
There was a drizzle of rain the next morning, for which May Margaret was grateful. It was a good excuse for appearing at the station in the Burberry raincoat, which gave her not only a respite from self-consciousness, but an almost military air. Her cloth cap, too, the peak of which filled her strong young face with masculine shadows, approximated to the military shape. It was a wise choice; for the soft slouch hat, which she had tried at first, had persistently assumed a feminine aspect, an almost absurdly picturesque effect, no matter how she twisted it or pulled it down on her close-cropped head.