"You don't need to go on with this business now that we have had our little talk," he remonstrated.
"I cannot leave until the twentieth," Nikasti replied. "I think it best that I remain here. Your cocktail, sir."
Fischer accepted the glass with a good-humoured little laugh.
"Well," he said, "I suppose you know what you want to do, but it seems to me unnecessary. Say, is anything wrong with you? You seem shaken, somehow."
"I am quite well," Nikasti declared gravely. "I am very well indeed."
Fischer stared at him searchingly from behind his spectacles.
"You don't look it," he observed. "If you'll take my advice, you'll get away from here and rest somewhere quietly for a few days. Why don't you try one of the summer hotels on Long Island?"
"Until I sail," he decided, "I stay here. It is better so."
"You know best, of course," Fischer replied. "Where's Mr. Van Teyl?"
"He has gone out with his sister, sir--the young lady in the next suite," Nikasti announced.
Fischer sighed for a moment. Then he finished his cocktail, drew on his gloves, and turned towards the door.
"Well, good night," he said. "Perhaps you are wise to stay here. Remember always what it is that you carry about with you."
Fischer entered his automobile and drove to a fashionable restaurant in the neighbourhood of Fifth Avenue. Arrived here, he made his way to a room on the first floor, into which he was ushered by one of the head waiters. Von Schwerin was already there, talking with a little company of men.
"Ah, our friend Fischer!" the latter exclaimed. "That makes our number complete."
A waiter handed around cocktails. Fischer smiled as he raised his glass to his lips.
"It is something, at least," he confided, "to be back in a country where one can speak freely. I raise my arm. Von Schwerin and gentlemen--'To the Fatherland!'"
They all drank fervently and with a little guttural murmur. Von Schwerin set down his empty glass. He was looking a little glum.
"In many ways, my dear Fischer," he said, "one sympathises with that speech of yours; but the truth is best, and it is to talk truths that we have met this evening. We are gaining no ground here. I am not sure that we are not losing."
There was a moment's disturbed and agitated silence.