"Why won't you do it?"
"For your sake as well as for my own," he explained. "America and France
are not working together in this matter, and for me to accompany you
would result simply in your being obliged to explain _me_ as well as the
letter, besides leading to endless complications and countless
suspicions. Didn't I expound this last evening?"
"You did--also much more; but I've thought over it almost the whole
night, and I simply must get this miserable letter off my mind. Perhaps
Mrs. Spencer has forestalled me with the Ambassador and has given him
such a tale as will insure my being shown the door; nevertheless I'll
risk it."
"Why don't you get in communication with your friend Madame Durrand,"
Harleston suggested "and have her, if she hasn't done so already,
identify you to the Marquis?"
"I shall, if the Marquis is sceptical. I'll admit that I'm pitiably
foolish, but I don't want Mrs. Durrand to know how I've bungled her
matter until the bungle is corrected."
"I can quite understand," said Harleston gently.
"Oh, I know you are right," she murmured, "yet I'm afraid to go alone."
"Take some other friend with you; some well-known man who can vouch for
your identity."
"I know no one in Washington except the friends at the Shoreham, and
they are not residents here.
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