"Mr. Peter Phipps, for instance?" he suggested. "Didn't I see you lunching here with him the other day?"

She looked across the table, towards where Phipps was sitting hand in hand with a young lady in blue, and apparently being very entertaining. Miss Flossie caught a glimpse of Wingate's expression.

"You don't like Mr. Phipps," she said. "You don't think I ought to lunch with him."

"I shouldn't if I were a young lady like you, whose choice must be unlimited," Wingate replied.

"How do you know that it is unlimited?" she demanded. "Perhaps just the people whom I would like to lunch with don't ask me."

"They need encouragement," he suggested.

She laughed into his eyes.

"Do you know anything about the men who need encouragement?" she asked demurely.

He avoided the point and made some casual remark about the changes in London during the last few years. She sighed sorrowfully.

"It has changed for no one so much as me," she murmured. "The war—"

"You lost friends, I suppose?" he ventured.

She closed her eyes.

"Don't!" she whispered. "I never speak of it," she went on, twisting a ring around her fingers nervously, "I don't like it mentioned, but I was really engaged to young Lord Fanleighton."

He murmured a little word of sympathy, and their conversation was momentarily interrupted as she leaned forward to answer an enquiry from her host. Wingate turned to Sarah, who was seated at his other side.

"How dare you neglect me so shamefully!" she asked.

"Let me make amends," he pleaded.

"I am glad you feel penitent, at any rate. I expect Miss Flossie Lane has asked you what you think of her friend, Miss Orford, and told you that she was engaged to Lord Fanleighton."

"What a hearing!" he murmured.

"Don't be silly," she replied. "I couldn't hear a word, but I know her stock in trade."

There was a little stir at the farther end of the table. Lord Dredlinton had left his place and was standing behind Phipps, with his hands upon his shoulders. He seemed to be shouting something in his ear. At that moment he recognised Wingate. He staggered up the farther side of the table towards him, butting into a waiter on the way and pausing for a moment to curse him, Flossie jogged Wingate's elbow.

"What fun!" she whispered. "Here's Lord Dredlinton, absolutely blotto!"



CHAPTER IX

Wingate from the first had a prescience of disagreeable things. There was malice in Dredlinton's pallid face, the ugly twist of his lips and the light in his bloodshot eyes. He paused opposite to them, and leaning his hands on the back of the nearest chair, spoke across the table.

"Hullo, Flossie!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old dear? How are you, Wingate?"

Wingate replied with cold civility, Flossie with a careless nod.

"I do hope," she whispered to her companion, glancing into the mirror which she had just drawn from her bag, "that Lord Dredlinton isn't going to be foolish. He does embarrass me so sometimes."

"I say," Dredlinton went on, "what are you doing here, Wingate? I didn't know this sort of thing was in your line."

Wingate raised his eyebrows but made no response. Dredlinton shook his head reproachfully at Miss Lane.

"Flossie," he continued, "you ought to know better. Besides, you will waste your time. Mr. Wingate's taste in women is of a very—superior order. Doesn't care about your sort at all. He likes saints. That's right, isn't it, Wingate?"

"You seem to know," was the cool reply.

"Not 't tall sure," Dredlinton went on, balancing himself with difficulty, "that your new conquest would altogether approve of this, you know. Wingate, let me tell you that Flossie is a very dangerous young lady—destroys the peace of everybody—can't sleep myself for thinking of her. Not your sort at all, Wingate. We know your sort, don't we, eh?"

Wingate remained contemptuously silent. Kendrick rose from his place and laid his hand on Dredlinton's shoulder.

"Come and sit down, Dredlinton," he said shortly. "You're making an idiot of yourself."

"Go to hell!" the other replied truculently. "Who are you? Just that man's broker, that's all. Want to sell wheat, Wingate, or buy it, eh?"

Wingate looked at him steadily.

"You're drunk," he said. "I should advise you to get a friend to take you home."

"Drunk, am I?" Dredlinton shouted. "What if I am? I'm a better man drunk than you are sober—although she may not think so, eh?"

Wingate looked at him from underneath level brows.

"I should advise you not to mention any names here," he said.

"I like that!" the other scoffed. "Not to mention any names, eh? He'll forbid me next to talk about my own wife."

"You'd be a cur if you did," Wingate told him.

A little spot of colour burned in Dredlinton's cheeks. For a moment he showed his teeth. But for Kendrick's restraining arm, he seemed as though he would have thrown himself across the table. Then, with a great effort, he regained command of himself.

"So you won't sell wheat and you won't buy wheat, Mr. American!" he jeered. "I know what you would like to buy, though—and, damn it all, there's old Dreadnought Phipps down there—he's a bidder, too—ain't you, Phipps, old boy? What you see in her, either of you, I don't know! She's no use to me."

Phipps rose in his place. Sir Frederick Houstley left his chair and came round to Dredlinton.

"Lord Dredlinton," he said, "I think you had better leave."

"I'll leave when I damned well please!" was the quick reply. "Don't you lose your wool, old Freddy. This is going to be a joke. You listen. I tell you what I'll do. I'm a poor man—devilish poor—and it takes a lot of money to enjoy oneself, nowadays. You're all in this. Sit tight and listen. We'll have an auction."

Wingate rose slowly to his feet, pushed his chair back and stood behind it. Flossie gripped him by the wrist.

"Don't take any notice of him, please, Mr. Wingate," she implored, in an agonised whisper. "For my sake, don't! He's dangerous when he's like this. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."

"Look here, Dredlinton," Sir Frederick expostulated, "you are spoiling my party. You don't want to quarrel with me, do you?"

"Quarrel with you, Freddy?" Dredlinton replied, patting him on the back affectionately. "Not I! I'm too fond of you, old dear. You give too nice parties. Always the right sort of people—except for that bounder over there," he went on, nodding his head towards Wingate.

"Then sit down and don't make an ass of yourself," his host begged. "You're spoiling every one's enjoyment, making a disturbance like this."

"Spoiling their enjoyment be hanged!" Dredlinton scoffed. "Tell you what, I'm going to make the party go. I'm going to have a bit of fun. What about an auction, eh?—-an auction with two bidders only—both millionaires—one's a pal and the other isn't. Both want the same thing—happens to be mine. Damn! I never thought it was worth anything, but here goes. What'll you bid, Phipps?"

Phipps apprised the situation and decided upon his role. He had a very correct intuition as to what was likely to happen.

"Sit down and don't be an ass, Dredlinton," he laughed. "Don't take the fellow seriously," he went on, speaking generally. "He's all right as long as you let him alone. You're all right, aren't you, Dredlinton?"

"Right as rain," was the confident reply. "But let's hear your bid, if you're going to make one."

"Bid? You've got nothing to sell," Phipps declared good humouredly, with a covert glance towards Wingate. "What are you getting rid of, eh? Your household goods?"

"Come on, Phipps," Dredlinton persisted. "You're not going to fade away like that. You've given me the straight tip. You were the only man in the running. Clear course. No jealousy. Up to you to step in and win. You've got a rival, I tell you. You'll have to bid or lose her. Open your mouth wide, man. Start it with ten thou."

"Sit down, you blithering jackass!" Phipps roared. "Give him a drink, some one, and keep him quiet."

"Don't want a drink," Dredlinton replied, shaking himself free from Kendrick's grasp. "Want to keep my head clear. Big deal, this. May reestablish the fortunes of a fallen family. Gad, it's a night for all you outsiders to remember, this!" he went on, glancing insolently around the table. "Don't often have the chance of seeing a nobleman selling his household treasures. Come on, Wingate. Phipps is shy about starting. Let's have your bid. What about ten thou, eh?"

Wingate came slowly around the table. His eyes never left Dredlinton. Dredlinton, too, watched him like a cat, watched him drawing nearer and nearer.

"What, do you want to whisper your bid?" he jeered. "Out with it like a man! This is a unique opportunity. Heaven knows when you may get the chance again! Shall we say twenty thou, Wingate? A peeress and a saint! Gad, they aren't to be picked up every day!"

"What on earth is he trying to sell?" Flossie demanded.

Dredlinton turned with an evil grin. He had at least the courage of a drunken man, for he took no account of Wingate towering over him.

"Don't you know?" he cried out. "Doesn't every one understand?"

"Stop!" Wingate ordered.

"And why the hell should I stop for you?" Dredlinton shouted. "If Flossie wants to know, here's the truth. It's the least cherished of all my household goods. It's my wife."

Of what happened during the next few seconds, or rather of the manner of its happening, few people were able to render a coherent account. All that they remembered was a most amazing spectacle,—the spectacle of Wingate walking quietly to the door with Dredlinton in his arms, kicking and shouting smothered profanities, but absolutely powerless to free himself. The door was opened by a waiter, and Wingate passed into the corridor. A maitre d'hotel, with presence of mind, hurried up to him.

"Have you an empty room with a key?" Wingate asked.

The man led the way and pushed open the door of a small apartment used on busy occasions for a service room. Wingate thrust in his struggling burden and locked the door.

"Strong panels?" he enquired, pausing for a moment to listen to the blows directed upon them.

The head waiter smiled.

"They're more than one man can break through, sir," he assured him.

Wingate made his way back to the supper party. Half of the guests were on their feet. He met Sir Frederick near the door.

"Sorry, Sir Frederick, if I am in any way responsible for this little disturbance," he said, as he made his way towards his place. "I think if I were you, I should give this key to one of the commissionaires a little later on. Lord Dredlinton is quite safe for the present."

Sir Frederick patted him on the shoulder.

"Most unprovoked attack," he declared. "Delighted to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Wingate, you treated him exactly as he deserved."

Wingate resumed his place and held out his glass to the waiter. Then he raised it to his lips. The glass was full to the brim but his fingers were perfectly steady. He looked down the table towards Phipps, whose expression was noncommittal, and gently disemburdened himself of Flossie's arm, which had stolen through his.

"I think you are the most wonderful man I ever met," she confided.

"You're a brick," Sarah whispered in his ear. "Come and see me off the premises, there's a dear. Jimmy won't be ready for hours yet and I want to get home."

Wingate rose at once, made his adieux and accompanied Sarah to the door, followed by a reproachful glance from Flossie. The former took his arm and held it tightly as they passed along the corridor.

"I think that you are the dearest man I ever knew, Mr. Wingate," she said, "just as I think that Josephine is the dearest woman, and I hope more than anything in the world—well, you know what I hope."

"I think I do," Wingate replied. "Thank you."



CHAPTER X

Andrew Slate, a very personable man in his spring clothes of grey tweed, took up his hat and prepared to depart. Half-past twelve had just struck by Wingate's clock, and the two men had been together since ten.

"You're a wonderful person, Wingate," Slate said, with a note of genuine admiration in his tone. "I don't believe there's another man breathing who would have had the courage to plan a coup like this."

Wingate shrugged his shoulders.

"The men who dig deep into life," he replied, as he shook hands, "are the men who take risks. I was never meant to be one of those who scratch about on the surface."

A note was slipped into his letter box as he let Slate out. He noticed the coronet on the envelope and opened it eagerly. A glance at the signature brought him disappointment. He read it slowly, with a hard smile upon his lips:

My dear Mr. Wingate,

I am writing to express to you my sincere and heartfelt regret for last night's unfortunate incident. I can do no more nor any less than to confess in plain words that I was drunk. It is a humiliating confession, but it happens to be the truth. Will you accept this apology in the spirit in which it is tendered, and wipe out the whole incident from your memory? I venture to hope and believe that you are sportsman enough to accede to my request.

Yours regretfully.

DREDLINTON.

Wingate was conscious of a feeling of disappointment as he threw the note upon the table. Open warfare was, after all, so much better. An amende so complete left him with no alternative save acquiescence. Even while he was coming to this somewhat unwelcome decision, the telephone bell rang. He took off the receiver and was instantly galvanised into attention. It was Josephine speaking.

"Is that Mr. Wingate?" she asked.

"It is," he admitted. "Good morning—Josephine!"

"Quite right," she answered composedly. "That is how I like to have you call me. I am speaking for my husband. He is here by my side at the present moment."

"The mischief he is!" Wingate said. "Well?"

"My husband has desired me to intercede with you," Josephine continued, "to beg your acceptance of the apology which he has sent you this morning."

"No further word need be spoken upon the subject," Wingate replied. "Your husband has explained that he was drunk and has tendered his apology. I accept it."

There was a brief pause. Josephine was obviously repeating Wingate's decision to her husband. Then she spoke again.

"My husband desires me to thank you," she said. "He desires me to hope that you will continue to visit at the house, and that you will not allow anything he may have said to interfere between our friendship."

"Nothing that he has said or could say could interfere with that," Wingate assured her,—"at least that is my point of view."

"And mine!"

"Shall I see you to-day?" he asked.

"I hope so," she answered. "Perhaps after luncheon—"

There was a sound as though the receiver had been taken from her fingers. Dredlinton himself spoke.

"Look here, Wingate, this is Dredlinton speaking," he said. "You won't let this little affair make any difference to your call upon us on Tuesday morning?"

"Certainly not," Wingate replied. "I was thinking of writing you about that, though. I don't see any object in my coming. I think you had better let me off that visit."

"My dear fellow," Dredlinton pleaded, "if you don't come, Phipps will think it is because of last night's affair and I shall get it in the neck. I'm in disgrace enough already. Do, for heaven's sake, oblige me, there's a good chap."

Wingate hesitated for a moment.

"Very well," he assented, "I will go. Is that all?"

"That's all, thanks."

"I should like to speak to your wife again," Wingate said.

"Sorry, she's just gone out," was the rather malicious reply. "I'd have kept her for you, if I'd known. So long!"

A knocking at the door,—a rather low, suggestive knocking. Wingate knew that it was an impossibility, but he nevertheless hastened to throw it open. Miss Flossie Lane stood there, very becomingly dressed in a tailor-made costume of covert coating. She wore a hat with yellow buttercups, and she had shown a certain reticence as regards cosmetics which amounted to a tacit acknowledgment of his prejudices.

"Miss Lane!" he exclaimed.

She looked at him with wide-open eyes.

"But you were expecting me, weren't you?" she asked. "I remembered your inviting me quite well, but I couldn't remember where you said, so I thought I'd better come and fetch you. I haven't done wrong, have I?"

"Most certainly not," Wingate replied. "Come in, please. I'll ring for a cocktail and send the man down into the restaurant to engage a table."

She sank into an easy-chair and looked around her, while Wingate did as he had suggested. The sitting room, filled with trophies of curiously mixed characteristics—a Chinese idol squatting in one corner, some West African weapons above it, two very fine moose heads over a quaintly shaped fireplace, and a row of choice Japanese prints over the bookcase—was a very masculine but eminently habitable apartment. Miss Lane looked around her and approved.

"This is quite the nicest flat in the Court," she declared, "and I've been in so many of them. How did you find time to furnish it like this? I thought that you'd only just arrived from America."

"I come to London often enough to keep this little suite here," he explained. "I had it even through the war. Sometimes I lend it to a friend. I am one of those domestic people," he added with a smile, "who like to have a home of some sort to come to at the end of a journey."

"You're much too nice to live alone," she ventured.

"Well, you see, your sex has decreed that I shall up to the present," he remarked. "Here come the cocktails. I hope that yours won't be too dry. Where will you lunch—the restaurant or the grillroom?"

"The grillroom," she decided, after a moment's reflection. "We can go and sit out in the foyer afterwards and have our coffee."

The cocktails and Wingate's choice of a table were alike approved. Wingate himself, as soon as he had recovered from the bland assurance with which his guest had manufactured her invitation, devoted himself with a somewhat hard light in his eyes to the task of entertaining her. The whole gamut of her attractions was let loose for his benefit. He represented to her the one desirable thing, difficult of attainment, perhaps, but worth the effort. Soft glances and words hinting at tenderness, sighs and half-spoken appeals were all made to serve their obvious purpose. If Wingate's responses were a little artificial, he still made no attempt to hurry through the meal. He seemed perfectly content to consider the attractions which his companion heaped into the shop window of her being. Once she almost amused him, and he found himself for a few seconds contemplating her with some glimmering of the thought which she was so anxious to instil into his brain. After all, a companion like this was soothing, made no demands, filled a pleasant enough place in the broken ways of life, provided one had no other aspirations. And then the thought passed from him,—forever.

They took their coffee and liqueurs in the foyer. Flossie, perfectly satisfied with her companion and her progress with him, chattered gaily away with scarcely a pause, and Wingate, after his first resentment at her coming had passed, found a certain relief in sitting and listening to her equable flow of nonsense. By and by, however, she came very near annoying him.

"You know Lady Dredlinton very well, don't you Mr. Wingate?" she asked, a little abruptly.

His answer was marked with a warning note of stiffness.

"Lady Dredlinton," he repeated. "I know her, certainly. I was at her hospital at Etaples."

"Every one says that she is charming," the young lady continued, with a side glance at him. "Pity she can't keep that wicked husband of hers a little more under control. You know, Mr. Wingate," she confided, "he has asked me to supper four or five times but I have never cared about going with him quite alone. A girl has to be so careful in my position. Don't you agree with me?"

"I suppose so," he answered indifferently.

"Dear old 'Dredful,' as Lord Fanleighton used to call him, can be very amusing sometimes, but he hasn't the best reputation, and of course he's terrible when he's drunk, as he was last night. I do so like nice men," she sighed, "and there are scarcely any left. One seems to have lost all one's friends in the war," she went on reminiscently, her large blue eyes veiled with sadness. "It makes one feel very lonely sometimes."

Wingate scarcely heard her. His eyes were fixed upon the two men walking up the carpeted way from the restaurant. One was Peter Phipps, the other Lord Dredlinton. Flossie Lane, seeking to discover the cause of her companion's abstraction, glanced in the same direction and recognised them at once.

"Why here is Lord Dredlinton!" she exclaimed. "And Mr. Peter Phipps! He is rather a dear person, Mr. Phipps, you know, although you don't like him."

"Is he!" Wingate observed grimly.

"They are coming to speak to us," the young lady went on, shaking her skirts a little and glancing into the mirror which she had just drawn from her bag. "What a bother!"

Lord Dredlinton, more dignified than usual but if possible still more unpleasant, threaded his way between the chairs and paused before the two, followed, a few spaces behind, by Phipps.

"Hullo, Flossie!" the former exclaimed. "How are you, Wingate? You got my letter?"

"I received your letter and also your telephone message," Wingate replied stiffly. "So far as I am concerned, the matter, as I told you, is at an end."

"That's all right, then.—Flossie," Dredlinton continued, looking reproachfully at the young woman whose hand he was still holding, "I told you last night that you ought to know better. You should confine your attentions to the black sheep of the world, like me. Dear me!" he went on, standing a little on one side so as not to conceal Wingate. "My wife, apparently, has been lunching here. Wingate, shall we form a screen in front of you, or are you content to be toppled from your pedestal?"

Wingate met the ill-natured sneer indifferently. He even smiled as Phipps, standing on the outside of the little circle, also altered his position. It was clearly the intention of both that Josephine should realise the situation. Attracted by a gesture from her husband, she glanced across at them. For a single moment she half hesitated. There was a queer look in her eyes, a look of surprise mingled even with pain. Then she flashed a brilliant smile upon Wingate, ignored her husband and Phipps, and passed on.

"Cut!" Lord Dredlinton exclaimed, with mock dismay. "Cut, my friend Phipps! Me, her husband, and you, her dear friend! Really, it's a most uncomfortable thing to have a disapproving wife going about to the same restaurants and places. Let us go and sulk in a corner, Phipps, and leave this little comedy here to develop. Farewell, faithless Flossie! Wingate," he concluded, shaking his head gravely, "you have disappointed me."

They passed on. The young lady tossed her head angrily.

"There are times," she announced, "when I hate Lord Dredlinton. I don't know any one who can say such horrid things without being actually rude. I'm sure his wife looks much too good for him," she added generously.

Wingate's nerves were all on edge. He glanced at his watch and rose regretfully to his feet.

"I am afraid," he said, as he led the way towards the exit, "that I must go back to work. Thank you so much for coming and taking pity upon a lonely man, Miss Lane."

"You can have all that sort of pity you like," she whispered.

"Then I shall certainly make demands upon it," he assured her, as they parted at the door.

He found himself presently back in the cool and pleasantly austere surroundings of his sitting room and threw himself into an easy-chair drawn up in front of the wide-flung windows. A strong breeze, against which a flight of seagulls leaned, was stirring the trees in the Embankment Gardens and ruffling the surface of the water. The pall of smoke eastward seemed here and there cloven by a wind-swept avenue of clearer spaces. He felt a sudden and passionate distaste for his recent environment,—the faint perfume which had crept out from the girl's hair and face as she had leaned towards him, the brushing of her clothes against his, the daring exposure of silk stocking, the continual flirtatious appeal of her eyes and lips. He felt himself in revolt against even that faint instinct of toleration which her prettiness and at times subtle advances had kindled in him. He let his thoughts rest upon the more wonderful things which smouldered in his brain and leaped like fire through his veins when he dared to think of them. The room seemed suddenly purified, made fit for her presence.

"I am sure that Mr. Wingate will see me if he is alone," he heard a familiar voice say.

He sprang to his feet, realising in those few moments into what paradise his thoughts had been climbing, and greeted Lady Dredlinton.

Josephine accepted the easy-chair which he wheeled up for her and glanced around the room critically.

"Just what I expected," she murmured. "A nice healthy man's room, without too much furniture, and with plenty of books. You are wondering why I came, of course."

"I am too content with the good fortune which brought you to find time for wonder," he replied.

"You'll laugh at me when I tell you," she warned him.

"You needn't tell me at all unless you like. You are here. That is enough for me."

She shook her head.

"I am putting myself in the confessional," she declared. "I was leaving the place with a disagreeable taste in my mouth. At the last moment, even as I was stepping into a taxicab, I turned back. I went instead to the desk and boldly asked for the number of your suite. I want that taste removed, please."

"Tell me how I can do it in the quickest possible manner," he begged.

She turned and looked at him, enquiringly at first, then with a delightful little smile which relieved all the tenseness of her expression.

"By assuring me that you are not going to emulate, in however innocent a fashion, my husband's exploits in the musical comedy world."

He leaned over her chair, took her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

"Honestly," he asked, "do you need any assurance?"

"That is the funny part of it," she laughed. "Since I am here, since I have seen you, I don't feel that I do, but downstairs I had quite a horrid little pain."

"You will never have occasion to feel it again," he told her. "I met Miss Flossie Lane last night for the first time at the supper party to which Roger Kendrick took me. I was placed next to her, and somehow or other she seems to have convinced herself that I invited her to lunch to-day."

"And you?"

"To be perfectly honest I can't remember having done anything of the sort. However, what was I to do?"

"What you did, of course. That is finished. Now tell me about that supper party. What happened? Was Dredlinton really rude to you?"

"Your husband was drunk," Wingate answered. "He was rude to everybody."

"And what was the end of it?"

"I carried him out of the room and locked him up," he told her.

She laughed softly.

"I can see you doing it," she declared. "Are you as strong as you look, Mr. John Wingate?"

"I am certainly strong enough to carry you away and lock you up if you don't call me John," he replied.

"John, then," she said. "I don't mind calling you John. I like it. How fortunate," she went on lazily, "that we really did get to know one another well in those days at Etaples. It saves one from all those twinges one feels about sudden friendships, for you know, after all, in a way, nothing at Etaples counted. You were just the most charming of my patients, and the most interesting, but still a patient. Here, you simply walk into my life and take me by storm. You make a very foolish woman of me. If I had to say to myself, 'Why, I have known him less than a week!' it would hurt my pride horribly."

"Blessed little bit of shell that found a temporary shelter in my arm!" he exclaimed. "All the same, I feel just as you do. Out there, for all your graciousness, you were something sacred, something far away."

"And here?" she whispered.

"Shall I tell you?" he asked, with a sudden fire in his eyes.

"For heaven's sake, no!" she begged, thrusting out her hands. "I'm afraid to think—afraid of actual thoughts. Don't let us give form to anything. Let me be content to just feel this new warmth in my life."

She leaned back in her chair with a contented sigh. A little tug came snorting up the river. Even the roar of the traffic over Waterloo Bridge seemed muffled and disintegrated by the breeze which swept on its way through the rustling lime trees.

"You are wonderfully situated here," she went on. "I don't believe it is London at all. It rests me more than any place I have been in for a long time, and yet—at the same time—I think that it is going to make me sad."

"Sad? But why?" he asked anxiously.

"Because it seems like one of the stopping places—where one steps off to think, you know. I don't want to think. I have had nine such miserable years. All through the war there was one's work, one's hospital, the excitement of the gigantic struggle. And now everything seems flat. One struggles on without incentive. One lives without hope."

"We weren't meant to do that," he protested.

"Only those of us who have thrown our lives away," she went on wearily. "You see, I thought Henry was different. I thought he only wanted a little understanding, a little kindness. I made a mistake."

"Life is too wonderful a thing," he insisted, "to lose the glory of it for one mistake."

"I am on the rocks," she sighed, "now and always. If I were made like your little luncheon friend, it might be different. I suppose I should spread my wings and settle down upon another planet. But I can't. I am differently made. I am not proud of it. I wish I weren't. It wouldn't all seem so hard then, I am still young, you know, really," she added, with a note of rebellion in her tone.

"How young?"

"Thirty-one."

"Nowadays, that is youth," he declared confidently, "and youth means hope."

"Sometimes," she admitted a little listlessly, "I have dared to feel hope. I have felt it more than ever since you came. I don't know why, but there it is."

He turned his head and looked at her, appraisingly yet with reverence. No measure of despair could alter the fact that she was a very beautiful woman. Her slimness never lost its meed of elegance. The pallor of her cheeks, which might have seemed like an inheritance of fragility, was counteracted by the softness of her skin and the healthy colour of her curving lips. She bore his scrutiny so impersonally, with such sweet and challenging interest, that he persisted in it. Her brown hair was almost troublesome in its prodigality. There were little curls about her neck which defied restraint. Her cool muslin gown, even to his untutored perceptions, revealed a distinction which the first dressmaker in London had endorsed. She spoke the words of lifelessness, yet she possessed everything which men desire.

"The tragedy with you," he pronounced, "is the absence of affection in your life."

"Do you think that I haven't the power for caring?" she asked quietly.

"I think that you have had no one to care for," he answered. "I think there has been no one to care for you in the way you wanted—but those days are over."

For the first time she showed some signs of that faint and growing uneasiness in his presence which brought with it a peculiar and nameless joy. Her eyes failed to meet the challenge of his. She glanced at the clock and changed the subject abruptly.

"Do you know that I have been here all this time," she reminded him, "and we have not said a word about our campaign."

"There is a great deal connected with it, or rather my side of it," he declared, "which I shall never tell you."

"You trust me?" she asked a little timidly, "You don't think that I should betray you to my husband?"

He laughed the idea to scorn.

"It isn't that," he assured her. "The machinery I have knocked into shape is crude in its way, but the lives and liberty of those underneath depend upon its workings."

"It sounds mysterious," she confessed.

"If you say that it is to be an alliance, Josephine," he decided, "it shall be. I need your help enormously, but you must make up your mind, before you say the last word, to run a certain measure of risk."

"What risk is there for me to run?" she asked, with a smile of confidence. "What measure of unhappiness could be crowded into my life which is not already there? I insist upon it—John—that you accept me as an ally without any more hesitation."

He bent and kissed her hands.

"This, then, is final," he said. "Within the next twenty-four hours you will be ready if necessary?"

"I am ready now—any time—always," she promised him.



CHAPTER XI

"My dears," Lady Amesbury said, as she stood surrounded by her guests on the hearth rug of her drawing-room, "you know what my Sunday night dinner parties are—all sorts and plenty of them, and never a dull man or a plain woman if I can help it. To-night I've got a new man. He's not much to look at, but they tell me he's a multimillionaire and making all the poor people of the country miserable. He's doing something about making bread dearer. I never did understand these things."

"Heavens, you don't mean Peter Phipps!" Sarah exclaimed.

"His very name," her aunt declared. "How did you guess it, my dear? Here he is. Be quiet, all of you, and watch Grover announce him. He's such a snob—Grover. He hates a Mister, anyhow, and 'Peter Phipps' will dislocate his tongue."

Lady Amesbury was disappointed. Grover had marched with the times, and the presence of a millionaire made itself felt. His announcement was sonorous and respectful. Mr. Peter Phipps made his bow to his hostess under completely auspicious circumstances.

"So kind of you not to forget, Mr. Phipps," she murmured. "My Sunday parties are always viva voce invitations, and what between not remembering whom I've asked, and not knowing whether those I've asked will remember, I generally find it horribly difficult to arrange the places. We are all right tonight, though. Only two missing. Who are they, Sarah?"

"Josephine and Mr. Wingate," Sarah replied, with a covert glance at Phipps.

"Of course! And thank goodness, here they are! Together, too! If there's anything I love, it's to start one of my dinners with a scandal. Josephine, did you bring Mr. Wingate or did he bring you?"

Josephine laughed. Then she saw Phipps standing in the background and she raised her voice a little.

"Mr. Wingate called for me," she explained. "Taxis are so scarce in our part of the world on Sunday nights, and when one does happen to know a man who makes enough money on Friday to buy a fleet of motor-cars on Saturday—"

"My doing," Kendrick interrupted. "I'm his broker. Did you buy the Rolls-Royce, Wingate?"

"I brought it away with me, chauffeur and all."

"The most delightful car I ever rode in," Josephine pronounced.

Phipps manoeuvred his way to her side. There was a frown on his forehead as he leaned towards her.

"So a Rolls-Royce is your favourite make of car, Lady Dredlinton," he remarked.

"Absolutely! I can't conceive of anything more comfortable. Mr. Wingate has promised to let me try it in the country next week."

"So my Wolseley is to be scrapped?" Phipps asked, under his breath.

She looked at him pleasantly enough but with a dangerous light in her eyes.

"Have you a Wolseley?" she murmured. "Oh, yes, I remember! You offered to send it around to take me shopping."

"I sent it around three mornings," he replied. "You did not use it once. You did not even open the note I left inside."

"I am not very fond of using other people's cars," she said.

"It need not be another person's car unless you like," he muttered.

She looked at him for a moment thoughtfully. Phipps was a man of brass, without sensitiveness or sensibility. Nevertheless, he flushed a little. Just then dinner was announced and Lady Amesbury bustled once more into the midst of her guests.

"My dears," she told them all, "I've forgotten who takes anybody down! Scrap along as you are, and you'll find the cards in your places downstairs. Pick up any one you like. Not you, sir," she added, turning to Wingate. "You're going to take me. I want to hear all the latest New York gossip. And—lean down, please—are you really trying to flirt with Josephine Dredlinton? Don't disturb her unless you're in earnest. She's got a horrible husband."

"I admire Lady Dredlinton more than any woman I know," Wingate answered. "One does not flirt with the woman one really cares for."

"Hoity-toity!" Lady Amesbury exclaimed. "That's the real divorce-court tone. There was a young man—-I don't know how many years ago—who used to talk like that to me at the time Amesbury was Ambassador at Madrid and took up with that Lola de Mendoza woman. Neither affair came to anything, though. Amesbury got tired of Spain, and my young man married a rich grocer's daughter. Still, I recognise the tone. Here we all are. Now you play a sort of hunt-the-slipper game, looking for your places, all of you. I know mine, thank God! Now let's pray to Heaven the soup's hot! And don't any one talk to me while I'm eating it. The present generation are shocking soup eaters."

Wingate found Josephine on his other side and was happy. Phipps was just across the table. His hostess proceeded to give the latter some of her attention.

"Mr. Phipps," she said, "they tell me you've taken that scoundrel of a nephew of mine—Dredlinton—into your business, whatever it is. He won't do you any good, you know."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Phipps replied. "He seemed to me rather a brainy person for his order."

"One for me," Lady Amesbury chuckled. "I don't care. If I chose to come on the Stock Exchange, I've got brains enough to ruin most of you. But I don't choose. I like to hear of the rest of you tearing yourselves to pieces, though. If you could keep Dredlinton out of mischief for a year, Mr. Phipps, I'd think you were the most wonderful man I ever met. He's a bad lot, but I tolerate him because I love his wife."

Phipps scowled across the table to where Wingate's head was nearly touching Josephine's.

"Lady Dredlinton seems to be achieving great popularity in every direction," he said sourly.

"And a jolly good thing, too," Lady Amesbury declared. "If ever a woman earned the right to kick the traces away for a bit, Josephine has. Don't you mind anything I say, my dear," she added, as Josephine looked up at the sound of her name. "You settle down to a nice comfortable flirtation, if you want to. You owe it to yourself, all right, and then there's some coming to you. And I'm your husband's aunt who tells you that."

"I'm not at all sure," Phipps observed, "that you don't underrate your nephew's ability."

"The only thing I know about his ability," was the blunt reply, "is his ability to borrow a few hundreds from any one fool enough to lend it to him, and then invent excuses for not paying it back. He's good at that, if you like. Still, don't let me set you against him, Mr. Phipps. Every shilling he gets out of you and your company is so much saved to the family."

Lady Amesbury, who, notwithstanding her apparent inconsequence, had a keen eye for her guests, directed her conversation for a time into another channel, and finally changed places with Sarah in order to come into closer touch with a spiritualist from Sweden, who was on the lookout for a medium. Sarah turned appealingly toward Wingate.

"Jimmy and I want to be taken to the theatre to-morrow night," she announced. "He doesn't get any money till Wednesday, and I haven't earned enough this week to pay my garage bill."

"I'll take you both," Wingate promised quickly, "if Lady Dredlinton will make a fourth."

"Delightful," Josephine assented.

"I have a box at the Opera," Phipps announced, leaning forward. "Give me the pleasure of entertaining you all."

Josephine shook her head.

"Tannhauser! I am sorry, Mr. Phipps, but I couldn't possibly stand it. Ask us another time, won't you? To-morrow night," she went on, turning to Wingate, "let us be absolutely frivolous. A revue, I think."

"And dinner first at the Milan," Wingate insisted.

"And supper afterwards and a dance at Ciro's," Sarah put in. "I must tell Jimmy the glad tidings."

Peter Phipps made his adieux to Lady Amesbury early and drove in his electric coupe first to Romano's, then to the Milan and finally to Ciro's. Here he found Dredlinton, seated in a corner by himself, a little sulky at the dancing proclivities of the young lady whom he had brought. He greeted Phipps with some surprise.

"Hullo, Dreadnought!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with my garrulous aunt? Has the party broken up early or weren't you a success?"

"I wasn't a success," Phipps confessed grimly. "Look here, Dredlinton, are you sober enough to talk horse common sense?"

"Sober? My God, can you tell me how any one can get a drink here!" was the injured reply. "I was just off somewhere else. One bottle of champagne, if you please, between two of us, and the liqueur brandies were served with the soup. Call this—a Christian country!"

"Then if you're sober, and for once you seem to be," Phipps said, "just listen to me. Listen hard, mind, and don't interrupt. Have you ever wondered why I put you on the Board of the B.& I.?"

"My title, I suppose—and social position."

"Rot!" Phipps answered scornfully. "Your title and your social position aren't worth a damn to me. I put you on because of your wife."

Dredlinton stared at him.

"Why, you didn't even know her!"

"Never mind. I knew her to look at. I wanted to know her. Now I do know her, and it hasn't done me much good."

Dredlinton sat a little more erect in his place. Behind his cynical exterior, his evil brain had begun to work.

"Look here, Phipps," he said, "I don't care about this conversation. If a man happens to admire another man's wife, her husband is scarcely the proper confidant."

"Oh, yes, I know your theory!" Phipps scoffed. "You're willing enough to hide your head in the sand and take the goods the gods send you. That doesn't suit me. I happen to need your help."

"My help?" Dredlinton repeated. "The poor little spider to help the mighty Phipps! You're not finding difficulties in the way of your suit, are you?"

"If I do, it will be the worse for you," was the gruff reply. "As you're going on now, Dredlinton, it will be your wife, and your wife alone, who'll keep you out of jail before many weeks are past. How about that cheque to Farnham and Company last week? Farnham's say they never got it, but I hear it's come back through the bank with a queer endorsement upon it."

Dredlinton caught at the tablecloth. The malicious gleam in his eyes gave way to a look of positive fear.

"I can't remember—anything here—without any books," he muttered. "Tell me what it is you want, Phipps? I am ready to do any thing—you know that."

"Your wife's friendship with this fellow Wingate has got to be nipped in the bud," Phipps declared.

"Yes, but how?" Dredlinton demanded. "Josephine and I aren't anything to one another any more—you know that. She goes her own way."

"She lives in your house," Phipps said. "You remain her husband nominally and you have therefore a certain amount of authority. You must forbid her to receive Wingate."

"I'll forbid her, all right," Dredlinton assented, "but I won't guarantee that she'll obey."

"Then you must give orders to the servants," Phipps insisted. "I don't need to suggest to you, Dredlinton," he went on, "what means you should use to make your wife obey you, but there are means, and if you're not the man to realise them, I'm very much surprised in you. I will begin with a concrete case. Your wife, together with that fellow Wilshaw and Miss Baldwin, have accepted an invitation from Wingate to dine and go to a theatre to-morrow night. You must see that your wife does not go."

"Very well," Dredlinton promised, "I'll manage it somehow."

"See that you do," Phipps enjoined earnestly. "Your wife is one of those misguided women with a strong sense of duty. Unless you behave like a damn fool, you can reestablish some measure of control over her. Do so. There are certain circumstances," he went on, his face wrinkled a little with emotion, his voice deep and earnest, "there are certain circumstances, Dredlinton, under which I might be inclined to behave towards you with great generosity. I leave you to guess what those circumstances are. I will show you the way later on."

Dredlinton felt hope stir once more through his shocked and terrified senses. He lit a cigarette with fingers which had ceased to tremble, leaned a little back in his place and stared at his companion curiously.

"Phipps," he asked, "what the devil do you and this fellow Wingate see in my wife?"

"What a man like you would never look for," was the harsh reply.



CHAPTER XII

"Throw your coat down anywhere, Miss Baldwin," Wingate invited, as he ushered that young lady into his rooms soon after eleven o'clock on the following evening. "Now what can I give you? There are some sandwiches here—ham and pate-de-foie-gras, I think. Whisky and soda or some hock?"

"A pate sandwich and some plain soda water, please," Sarah replied, taking off the long motoring coat which concealed her evening clothes. "I have been fined for everything except disorderly driving—daren't risk that. Thanks!" she went on. "What ripping sandwiches! And quite a good play, wasn't it?"

"I am glad you enjoyed it."

"It was a swindle Josephine not turning up," Sarah continued, as she stretched herself out in Wingate's easy-chair. "Domestic ructions again, I suppose. How I do hate that husband of hers!"

"It was disappointing," he admitted.

There was a brief pause, during which Sarah finished her sandwiches and lit a cigarette.

"Wilshaw seems to be having a little trouble with the outside porter," her host remarked presently.

"It must cost him at least half a sovereign every time I leave the cab," Sarah sighed.

"How much do you make a week out of your driving, if it isn't too personal a question?" he enquired.

"It depends upon how much Jimmy's got."

"Is he your only client, then?"

"He very seldom gives me a chance of another. Once or twice I've refused to be engaged by the day, but he sends his man around to the garage and I find him sitting in the cab when I arrive."

Wingate laughed softly. She looked up at him with twinkling eyes.

"I believe you're making fun of my profession," she complained.

"Not at all, but I was wondering whether it wouldn't be cheaper for you to marry Jimmy, as you call him."

"We have spoken about it once or twice," she admitted. "The worst of it is, I don't think the cab would support two."

"Is Wilshaw so badly off?"

"His money is tied up until he is twenty-eight," Sarah explained. "I think that his father must have known how he was going to turn out. Jimmy promised that he would never anticipate it, and the dear old thing keeps his word. We shall be married on his twenty-eighth birthday, all right, unless his mother does the decent thing before."

"Has she money?" Wingate asked.

"Plenty—but she hasn't much confidence in Jimmy. I think she shows signs of wavering lately, though. Perhaps his latest idea—he's going into the City to-morrow, you know—may bring her around.—Mr. Wingate!"

"Well?"

"You're rather a dear old thing, you know," she said, "although you're so serious."

"And you're quite nice," he admitted, "although you're such an incorrigible little flirt."

"How do you know?" she laughed. "You never give me a chance of showing what I can do in that direction."

"Too old, my dear young lady," her host lamented, as he mixed himself a whisky and soda.

"Rubbish!" she scoffed. "Too much in love with some one else, I believe."

"These are too strenuous days for that sort of thing," he rejoined, "except for children like you and Mr. Wilshaw."

"I don't know so much about that," she objected. "The world has never gone so queerly that people haven't remembered to go on loving and be made love to. Look at the war marriages."

"Yes—and the war divorces," he reminded her.

"Brute!" she exclaimed, with a little grimace.

"Why 'brute'?" he protested. "You can't deny them. Some of these marriages were genuine enough, of course. Others were simply the result of a sort of amorous hysteria. Affected every one in those days just like a germ."

"John Wingate!"

"Yes?"

"Don't try to be cynical."

"I'm not."

"You are," she persisted. "There isn't a man breathing who has a more wonderful capacity for caring than you. You hide your feelings from most people. Are you very angry with me for having guessed? I have, you know."

Wingate paused in the act of lighting a cigarette.

"What's that?"

"I think I have a sort of second sight in such matters, especially as regards people in whom I am interested," Sarah continued, "and if there is one woman in the world whom I really adore, and for whom I am heartily sorry, it is Josephine Dredlinton."

"She has a rotten time," was Wingate's terse comment.

"Very few people know how rotten," Sarah went on. "She has lost nearly all her own relations in the war, her husband has spent the greater part of her fortune, flaunted his affairs with various actresses in the face of all London, shilly-shallied through the war as a recruiting officer, or on any odd job that kept him safely at home, and now he openly associates with a little company of men in the City who are out to make money any old way they can get hold of it."

"Lord Dredlinton is a bad lot," Wingate acquiesced.

"And Josephine is an angel," Sarah declared warmly. "If I were a man—"

"Well, you're not," he interrupted.

"If I were a man," she went on, laying her hand upon his, "I wouldn't let Josephine live out these best days of her life in sorrow. I wouldn't have her insulted and peered at, every hour of her life. I wouldn't see her living in torture, when all the time she has such a wonderful capacity for life and love. Do you know what I'd do, Mr. Wingate?"

"What would you do?" he asked.

"I'd take her away! I wouldn't care about anybody else or anything. If the world didn't approve, I'd make a little world of my own and put her in it. You're quite strong enough."

He looked through the walls of the room, for a minute.

"Yes, I am strong enough," he agreed, "but is she?"

"Why do you doubt her?" Sarah demanded. "What has she in her present life to lose, compared with what she gains from you—what she wants more than anything else in the world—love?"

He made no answer. The girl's words had thrilled him. Then the door swung open and Jimmy appeared, very pink and white, very immaculate, and looking rather more helpless than usual.

"I say, Sarah," he exclaimed, "it's no use! There's a most infernal block down in the courtyard. Chap wanted me to push the taxi out into the street. It's cost me all the loose change I've got to stop his sending for a policeman. We'll have to do a scoot."

Sarah sighed as her host arranged her cloak around her.

"Sorry we couldn't have stayed a little longer," she said. "Mr. Wingate was just getting most interesting."

"You'll have a drink before you go, Wilshaw?" Wingate insisted. "Say when."

The young man accepted the whisky and soda and promptly disposed of it.

"Thanks, old chap! Frightfully sorry to rush away like this, but that fellow downstairs means business."

"Good night, Mr. Wingate," Sarah said, holding out her hand, "and thanks ever so much for the evening. You don't think I'm a forward little minx, do you?"

"I think you're a sensible little dear," he assured her, "far too good for Jimmy."

"Sorry I accepted your hospitality, if that's how you're feeling," Jimmy grunted. "By the by, you haven't a few cigarettes, have you, for me to smoke while Sarah tries to get me safely home?"

Wingate held out the box.

"Fill your case," he invited; "your pockets, too, if you like. Don't forget, both of you, luncheon at one-thirty to-morrow in the restaurant. Good night!"

He stood with the door open, watching them go down the corridor. Then he came slowly back into his room. Once more the telephone bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver. The indifference of his opening monosyllable vanished in a second. Something amazing crept into his face.

"Who?—Lady Dredlinton?" he exclaimed.

"But where are you?—Downstairs?—Yes—Yes—Why, of course.—Here?—You mean that you are coming here, up to my room?—I don't quite understand.—Yes, of course.—One moment, please. Come up by the east lift unless you want to meet Sarah Baldwin and Wilshaw. They have this moment left me. The hall porter will show you."

Wingate laid down the receiver, glanced for a moment at the clock, hurried to the door, pushed back and secured the latch. Then he came back into the room and stood listening.

In the end she came quite suddenly. The door had opened and closed before he heard even the swish of her skirts. She stood there looking at him a little appealingly. She was dressed in dark travelling clothes and she carried a heavy dressing case in her hand. He sprang forward and took it from her.

"My dear friend," she exclaimed, with an attempt at levity, "don't look so tragic! There is a very simple explanation of this extraordinary visit, as you will soon find."

"It needs no explanation," he declared.

"Oh, yes, it does, of course," she continued. "I simply want you to intercede with the authorities here, so that I do not have to go and stand at that terrible counter. There is a continental train just in, and the place is crowded."

"You wish to stay here for the night?"

"Mayn't I? I have always heard that it was such a charming hotel, and I must stay somewhere."

"There is some trouble?" he asked slowly.

"There is always trouble," she replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. "To-night seems to me as though it may be the climax. You won't be horrified if I sit down and smoke one of your cigarettes? And may I remind you that your attitude is not entirely hospitable?"

Wingate had recovered from his first stupor. His eyes were very bright, he was filled with the sense of wonderful happenings.

"Oh, I'll be as hospitable as you like," he assured her. "You shan't have any cause to reproach me so far as that is concerned. This easy-chair, please. It is by far the most comfortable one. And now some cushions," he added, slipping them behind her. "The cigarettes are here, and I have some excellent hock. Just half a glass? Good! Miss Baldwin has been praising my sandwiches. You'll have one, won't you?"

She sighed with content, almost with happiness. The strained look had gone from her face. She took off her hat and he laid it upon the table.

"You are very good, very kind indeed," she murmured. "And yet not so kind as I would like to be."

He came and stood by her side. She was eating one of the sandwiches and had already tasted the wine. Somehow, he knew quite well that she had had no dinner.

"I want you to understand," he began, "that you are free to tell me what has happened to-night or not—just as you please. Don't feel obliged to explain, I'll be quite frank, I am a curious person as regards you. I want to know—everything. I should like to know how it was that you were unable to come to dinner or join us at the theatre to-night. I should like to know what has brought you out of your house to an hotel at midnight—but don't tell me unless you want to."

"I do want to," she assured him. "I want to tell you everything. I think—somehow I almost feel that you have the right to know."

"Cultivate that feeling," he begged her. "I like it."

She smiled, a wan little smile that passed very soon. Her face grew sad again. She was thinking.

"I dare say you can guess," she began presently, "something of what my daily life is like when my husband is in town. It is little less than torture, especially since he became mixed up with Mr. Phipps, that horrible person Martin, and their friends."

"Abominable!" Wingate muttered.

"He is all the while trying to induce me to receive their women friends," she continued. "I need not tell you that I have refused, as I always should refuse."

"Naturally!"

"To-night, however," she went on, "he has surpassed himself. First of all he telephoned to say that he was bringing home friends for dinner, and if I had any other engagement he requested me to cancel it. As you know, I did so. Notwithstanding his message, he did not arrive at the house until eleven o'clock, barely an hour ago."

"And kept you waiting all that time?"

"That is nothing. Let me explain something before I conclude. Before the war I had an Austrian maid, a woman whom I turned out of the house, and whom my husband at that time did not dare to ask me to reinstate. He had not then spent quite the whole of my fortune. Besides an undoubted intrigue with my husband, I heard afterwards that she only escaped imprisonment as a spy by leaving the country hurriedly just before war was declared. Tonight, my husband, having kept me waiting three hours while he dined with her in Soho, brought her back to the house, announcing that he had engaged her as his secretary."

"Damn the fellow!" Wingate muttered.

"Naturally," she continued, "I declined to sleep under the same roof. The woman remained—and here am I."

"You are here," he repeated. "Thank God for that!"

"It was perhaps imprudent of me," she sighed, "to choose this hotel, but I had a curious feeling of weakness. I felt that I must see some one to whom I could tell what had happened—some friend—before I slept. Perhaps my nerves are going. So I came to you. Did I do wrong?"

"The wrong would be if ever you left me," he declared passionately.

She patted his hand. "Dear friend!"

"The room I will arrange for in a minute or two," he promised. "That is quite easy. But to-morrow—what then?"

"I shall telephone home," she replied. "If that woman is still in the house, I shall go down into the country, and from there I shall write my lawyers and apply for a separation."

"So those are your plans," he remarked calmly.

"Yes. Can you suggest anything better?"

"I can suggest something a thousand times better."

She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she was conscious of a certain alteration in his deportment, the ring of his last words, the slight but unusual air of emotional fervour with which he seemed somehow to have become endowed. A woman of curiously strong virginal instincts, she realised, perhaps for the first time, the approach of a great change in Wingate's attitude towards her. Yet she could not keep from her lips the words which must bring his avowal.

"What do you mean?" she faltered.

"That you end it all," he advised firmly, "that you take your courage in both hands, that you do not return to your husband at all."

"Not return," she repeated, her eyes held by his.

"That you come to me," he went on, bending over the side of her chair. "Needless, wonderful words, but I love you. You were the first woman in my life. You will be the last. I have been silent, as you know. I have waited for something like this, and I think the time has come."

"The time can never come," she cried despairingly.

"The time has come at least for me to tell you that I love you more than any woman on earth," he declared, "that I want to take care of you, to take you into my life, to build a wall of passionate devotion around you, to keep you free from every trouble and every harm."

"Ah, dear friend, if it were but possible!" she murmured, holding his hands tightly.

"But it is possible," he insisted. "All that we need is courage. You owe nothing to your husband. You can leave him without remorse or a moment's shame. Your life just now is wasted,—a precious human life. I want you, Josephine. God knows how I want you!"

"You have my friendship—even my love. There, I have said it!" she repeated, with a little sob, "my love."

His arms were suddenly around her. She shrank back in her chair. Her terrified eyes invited and yet reproached him.

"Remember—oh, please remember!" she cried.

"What can I remember except one thing?" he whispered.

She held him away from her.

"You talk as though everything were possible between us. How can that be? I have no joy in my husband, nor he in me—but I am married. We are not in America."

He rose to his feet, a strong man trembling in every limb. He stood before her, trying to talk reasonably, trying to plead his cause behind the shelter of reasonable words.

"Let me tell you," he began, "why our divorce laws are so different from yours. We believe that the worst breach of the Seventh Commandment is the sin of an unloving kiss, the unwillingly given arms of a shuddering wife, striving to keep the canons of the prayer book and besmirching thereby her life with evil. We believe, on the other hand, that there is no sin in love."

"If you and I were alone in the world!"

"If you are thinking of your friends," he pleaded, "they are more likely to be proud of the woman who had the courage to break away from a debasing union. Every one realises—what your husband is. He has been unfaithful not only to you but to every friend he has ever had."

"Do I not know it!" she moaned. "Isn't the pain of it there in my heart, hour by hour!"

His reasonableness was deserting him. Again he was the lover, begging for his rights.

"Wipe him out of your mind, sweetheart," he begged. "I'll buy you from him, if you like, or fight him for you, or steal you—I don't care which. Anything sooner than let you go."

"I don't want to go," she confessed, afraid of her own words, shivering with the meaning of them.

"You never shall," he continued, his voice gaining strength with his rising hopes. "You've opened my lips and you must hear what is in my heart. You are the one love of my life. My hours and days are empty, I want you always by my side."

The love of him swept her away. Her head had fallen back, she saw his face through the mist.

"Go on, go on," she begged.

"I want you as I have wanted nothing else in life—not only for my own sake, for yours. I want to chase all those lines of sorrow away from your face."

"My poor, tired face," she faltered.

"Tired?" he repeated. "It's the most beautiful face on earth."

The smile which suddenly transformed her quivering mouth made it indeed seem so.

"You are so foolish, dear, but go on," she pleaded.

"I want to see you grow younger and lighter-hearted. I want you to realise day by day that something beautiful is stealing into your life. I want you to feel what real love is—tender, passionate, lover's love."

"My dear, my dear!" she cried. "I do not dare to think of these things, yet they sound so wonderful."

"Leave the daring to me, sweetheart," he answered. "You shall have nothing to do but rest after these horrible days, rest and care for me a little."

"Oh, I do care!" she exclaimed, with sudden passion. "That is what makes it all so wonderful."

"You love me? Tell me so once more?" he begged.

"Dear, I love you. You must have known it or you couldn't have said these things. And I thought I was going to die without knowing what love was."

"Never fear that again," he cried joyfully. "You shall know what it is every hour of the day. You shall know what it is to feel yourself surrounded by it, to feel it encompass you on every side. You shall know what it is to have some one think for you, live for you, make sweet places for your footsteps in life."

Her eyes shone. The years had fallen away. She rose tremblingly to her feet, her arms stole around his neck.

"John, you dear, wonderful lover," she whispered, "why, it has come already! I am forgetting everything. I am happy!"

The clock on Wingate's mantelpiece struck one. He drew himself gently away from the marvel of those soft entwining arms, stooped and kissed Josephine's fingers reverently.

"Dear," he said, "let me begin to take up my new responsibilities. We must arrange for your stay here."

She laughed happily, rose, and with a woman's instinct stood before the mirror, patting her hair.

"I don't recognise myself," she murmured. "Is this what love brings, John?"

He stood for a moment by her side.

"Love?" he repeated. "Why, you haven't begun yet to realise what it means—what it will bring to you."

Once more she set her hands upon his shoulders. Her eyes, which a moment before had looked so longingly into his, drooped for a moment.

"Dear," she begged, "you won't ever be sorry, will you, and—does this sound selfish, I wonder?—you won't mind waiting?"

He smiled down at her.

"I shall never be sorry," he declared firmly. "I shall always bless this night and the impulse that brought you here. And as to waiting," he went on, "well, I have had four years of waiting without any particular hope, even of seeing you again. I think that with hope I can hold out a little longer."

He went over to the telephone and spoke for a few moments. Then he laid down the receiver and returned.

"A boy is bringing up the key of your room at once," he announced. "You will be in the south block, a long way off, but the rooms there are comfortable."

"Thank you, John dear," she said, smiling.

"Just one thing more," he continued. "I want you to remember that this miserable, tangled skein of unhappiness which you have called life is finished and done with. From to-night you belong to me. I must see you to-morrow—if possible at Dredlinton House—and we can work out some plans then. But you are to worry about nothing. Remember that I am here, and I love you.—Good night!"

Once more she rested for a moment in his arms. The seconds sped by. Then he took a quick step backwards, and they both stared at the door. It was closed now, but the slam of it a moment before had sounded like a pistol shot.

"Who was that?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"That idiot of a boy with the key, I expect," he replied. "Wait, dear."

He hurried outside, through the little hall and into the corridor. There was no one in sight, not even the sound of footsteps to be heard. He listened for a moment and then returned.

"Who was it?" she repeated.

"Nobody!"

"But some one must have looked in—have seen us!"

"It may have been the outside door," he suggested.

She shook her head.

"The door was closed. I closed it behind me."

"You mustn't worry, dear," he insisted. "In all probability some one did look into the room by mistake, but it is very doubtful whether they would know who we were. It may have been Sparks, my man, or the night valet, seeing a light here. Remember what I told you a few minutes ago—there is no trouble now which shall come near you."

She smiled, already reassured.

"Of course, I am rather absurd," she said, "but then look at me! It is past one o'clock, and here am I in your rooms, with that terrible dressing case on the table, and without a hat, and still looking, I am afraid," she concluded, with a final glance into the glass, "a little tumbled."

"You look," he told her fondly, "like a girl who has just realised for the first time in her life that she is loved."

"How strange," she laughed happily,—"because that is exactly how I feel!"

There was a knock at the door. A page entered, swinging a key in his hand.

"Key of 440 for the lady, sir," he announced.

"Quite right, my boy. Listen. Did you meet any one in the corridor?"

"No one, sir."

"You haven't been in here before without knocking, have you?"

"No, sir," was the prompt reply. "I came straight up in the lift."

Wingate turned to Josephine with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"The mystery, then, is insoluble," he declared cheerfully, "but remember this, sweetheart," he added, as the boy stepped discreetly outside, "in small things as well as large, the troubles of this world for you are ended."

"You don't know how wonderful it sounds to hear words like that," she sighed, as they stood hand in hand. "I shan't seem very selfish, John, shall I, if I ask for a little time to realise all this? I feel that everything I have and am ought to be yours at this moment, because you have made me so happy, because my heart is so full of gratitude. But, alas, I have my weaknesses! I am a very proud woman. Sometimes I am afraid I have been a little censorious—as regards others!"

He stooped and kissed her fingers.

"If you knew what it felt like," he whispered, as he held open the door for her, "to have something to wait for! And whether you realise it or not, you are with me—from now on—always—my inspiration—my daily happiness."



CHAPTER XIII

Peter Phipps, sitting in his private office, might have served as the very prototype of a genial, shrewd and successful business man. The apartment was plainly and handsomely furnished. Although, only a few yards away, was a private exchange and an operator who controlled many private wires, a single telephone only stood upon his desk. The documents which cumbered it were arranged in methodical little heaps. His manager stood by his side, with a long slip of paper in his hand. The two men had been studying it together.

"A very excellently prepared document, Harrison," his employer declared graciously, as he leaned back in his chair with the tips of his fingers pressed together. "Capitally prepared and very lucid. A good many million bushels, that. We are creeping up, Harrison—creeping up."

Mr. Harrison bowed in recognition of his master's words of commendation. He was a worn-looking, negative person, with a waxlike complexion, a furtive manner, and a marvellous head for the figures with which he juggled.

"The totals are enormous, sir," he admitted, "and you may take it that they are absolutely correct. They represent our holdings as revised after the receipt of this morning's mail. I should like to point out, too, sir, that they have increased out of all proportion to outside shipments, during the last four days."

Phipps touched the Times with his forefinger.

"Did you notice, Harrison," he asked, "that our shares touched a hundred and eighty last night on the street?"

"I was advised of it, sir," was the quiet reply.

"My fellow directors and I," Phipps continued, "are highly gratified with the services of our staff during this period of stress. You might let them know that in the counting house. We shall shortly take some opportunity of showing our appreciation."

"You are very kind indeed, sir," the manager acknowledged, without change of countenance. "I am sorry to have to report that Mr. Roberts wishes to leave us."

"Roberts? One of our best buyers!" Phipps exclaimed. "Dear me, how's that? Can't we meet him, Harrison? Is it a matter of salary?"

"I am afraid not, sir."

"What then?"

"Mr. Roberts has leanings towards socialism, sir. He seems to think that the energies of our company tend to increase the distress which exists in the north."

The great man leaned back in his chair.

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "What on earth has that to do with Roberts? He isn't the conscience of the firm. He draws a matter of a thousand a year for doing as he is told."

"I tried to argue with him on those lines, sir," Harrison replied. "I am sorry to say I found him obdurate."

"He can be replaced, I suppose?" Phipps shrugged his shoulders.

"With some difficulty, sir," Harrison felt compelled to admit. "There is, as I dare say you are aware, sir, a certain feeling against us in the various Exchanges. The best men are warned against accepting employment with us."

"We pay higher salaries than any one else in the trade."

"The business methods of the company towards its employees," the manager acknowledged, "have always been excellent. Still, there is a feeling."

The chairman of the B. & I. sighed.

"We will pursue the subject later, Harrison," he said. "In the meantime, promote some one else on the staff, if necessary. Do your best to fill Roberts' place adequately."

"Very good, sir."

Dredlinton lounged into the office a few minutes later. Phipps welcomed him without any particular enthusiasm, but promptly dismissed the typist to whom he had been dictating.

"It happens that you are just the man I want to see," he declared. "Sit down."

Dredlinton sank a little wearily into an easy-chair, after a glance of disappointment at the retreating figure.

"Can't think why you always have such damned ugly girls about you, Phipps," he yawned. "Gives me the creeps to look at them."

Peter Phipps smiled as he drew a box of cigars from his desk.

"Then I will tell you the reason, my friend," he said. "For pleasure there is no one who appreciates beauty more than I do. For business I have a similar passion for efficiency. The two are never confused in my mind."

"Regular paragon, aren't you!" Dredlinton murmured. "Why did you want to see me, by the by?"

"What happened last night?" Phipps asked a little abruptly.

"I obeyed orders," Dredlinton told him. "I told her ladyship that I should be home to dinner and probably bring some friends. I was a little late but she waited."

Phipps smiled maliciously.

"She didn't dine with Wingate, then, or go to the theatre?"

"She did not," Dredlinton replied. "I put the kibosh on it, according to orders."

Peter Phipps pushed the cigars across the desk towards his companion.

"Try one of these before you enter upon the labours of the day," he invited, "and just see what you think of these figures."

Dredlinton glanced at the papers carelessly at first and then with genuine interest. They were certainly sufficiently surprising to rouse him for a moment from his apathy.

"Marvellous!" he exclaimed.

"Marvellous indeed," his Chief assented. "Now listen to me, Dredlinton. Why are you sitting there, looking like a whipped dog? Why can't you wear a more cheerful face? If it's Farnham's cheque you are worrying about, here it is," he added, drawing an oblong slip of paper from the pigeonhole of his desk, tearing it in two, and throwing it into the waste-paper basket. "A year ago, you told me that the one thing in the world you needed was money. Well, aren't you getting it? You have only to run straight with us here, and to work in my interests in another quarter that you know of, and your fortune is made. Cheer up and look as though you realised it."

Dredlinton crossed and uncrossed his legs nervously. His eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids puffy. Notwithstanding careful grooming, he had the air of a man running fast to seed.

"I am nervous this morning, Phipps," he confided. "Had a bad night. Every one I've come across, too, lately, seems to be cursing the B. & I."

"Let them curse," was the equable reply. "We can afford to hear a few harsh words when we are making money on such a scale."

"Yes, but how long is it going to last?" Dredlinton asked fretfully. "Did you see the questions that were asked in the House yesterday?"

Phipps leaned back in his chair and laughed quietly.

"Questions? Yes! Who cares about them? Believe me, Dredlinton, our Government has one golden rule. It never interferes with private enterprise. I don't know whether you realise it, but since the war there is more elasticity about trading methods than there was before. The worst that could happen to us might be that they appointed a commission to investigate our business methods. Well, they'd find it uncommonly hard to get at the bottom of them, and by the time they were in a position to make a report, the whole thing would be over."

"It's making us damned unpopular," Dredlinton grumbled.

"For the moment," the other agreed, "but remember this. There was never such a thing as an unpopular millionaire known in history, so long as he chose to spend his money."

Dredlinton drew a letter from his pocket and handed it across the table.

"Read that," he invited. "It's the fifth I've had within the last two days."

Phipps glanced at the beginning and the end, and threw it carelessly back.

"Pooh! A threatening letter!" he exclaimed. "Why, I had a dozen of those this morning. My secretary is making a scrapbook of them."

"That one of mine seems pretty definite, doesn't it?" Dredlinton remarked nervously.

"Some of mine were uncommonly plain-spoken," Phipps acknowledged, "but what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley. Chuck letters like that on the fire, as they have, and keep cheerful. The streets of London are the safest place in the world. No cable from your friend in New York yet?"

"Not a word," Dredlinton answered. "I expected it last night. You haven't forgotten that Wingate's due here this morning—that is, if he keeps his appointment?"

"Forgotten it? Not likely!" Phipps replied. "I was going to talk to you about that. We must have those shares. The fact of it is the Universal Line has played us false, the only shipping company which has. They promised to advise us of all proposed wheat cargoes, and they haven't kept their word. If my information is correct, and I expect confirmation of it at any moment in the cable I arranged to have sent to you, they have eleven steamers being loaded this very week. It's a last effort on the part of the Liverpool ring to break us."

"What'll happen if Wingate won't sell?" Dredlinton enquired.

"I never face disagreeable possibilities before the necessity arrives," was the calm reply. "Wingate is certain to sell. He won't have an idea why we want to buy, and I shall give him twenty thousand pounds profit."

"You'll find him a difficult customer," Dredlinton declared. "As you know, he hates us like poison."

"He may do that," Phipps acknowledged. "I've given him cause to in my life, and hope to again. But after all, he's a shrewd fellow. He's made money on the Stock Exchange this last week, and he's had the sense not to run up against us. He's not likely to refuse a clear twenty thousand pounds' profit on some shares he's not particularly interested in."

Dredlinton knocked the ash from his cigar. He leaned over towards his companion.

"Look here, Phipps," he said, "you can never reckon exactly on what a fellow like Wingate will do or what he won't do. It is just possible I may be able to help in this matter."

"Good man!" the other exclaimed. "How?"

Dredlinton hesitated for a moment. There was a particularly ugly smile upon his lips.

"Let us put it in this way," he said. "Supposing you fail altogether with Wingate?"

"Well?"

"Supposing you then pass him on to me and I succeed in getting him to sell the shares? What about it?"

"It will be worth a thousand pounds to you," Phipps declared.

"Two!"

Phipps shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't bargain," he said, "but two let it be—that is, of course, on condition that I have previously failed."

Dredlinton's dull eyes glittered. The slight contraction of his lips did nothing to improve his appearance.

"I shall do my best," he promised.

There was a knock at the door. A clerk from outside presented himself. As he held the door for a moment ajar, a wave of tangled sounds swept into the room,—the metallic clash of a score of typewriters, the shouting and bargaining of eager customers, the tinkle of telephones in the long series of cubicles.

"Mr. Wingate is here to see you, sir," the young man announced.

"You can show him in," Peter Phipps directed.



CHAPTER XIV

Phipps received his visitor with a genial smile and outstretched hand.

"Delighted to see you, Mr. Wingate," he said heartily. "Take a chair, please. I do not know whether you smoke in the mornings, but these Cabanas," he added, opening the box, "are extraordinarily mild and I think quite pleasant."

Wingate refused both the chair and the cigars and appeared not to notice the outstretched hand.

"You will forgive my reminding you, Mr. Phipps," he remarked drily, "that my visit this morning is not one of good-will. I should not be here at all except for Lord Dredlinton's assurance that the business on which you desired to see me has nothing whatever to do with the British and Imperial Granaries."

"Nothing in the world, Mr. Wingate," was the prompt declaration. "We would very much rather receive you here as a friend, but we will, if you choose, respect your prejudices and come to the point at once."

"In one moment."

"You have something to say first?"

"I have," Wingate replied gravely. "I should not willingly have sought you out. I do not, as a matter of fact, consider that any director of the British and Imperial Granaries deserves even a word of warning. But since I am here, I am going to offer it."

"Of warning?" Dredlinton muttered, glancing up nervously.

"Precisely," Wingate assented. "You, Mr. Phipps, and Lord Dredlinton, and your fellow directors, have inaugurated and are carrying on a business, or enterprise, whichever you choose to call it, founded upon an utterly immoral and brutal basis. Your operations in the course of a few months have raised to a ridiculous price the staple food of the poorer classes, at a time when distress and suffering are already amongst them. I have spent a considerable portion of my time since I arrived in England studying this matter, and this is the conclusion at which I have arrived."

"My dear Mr. Wingate, one moment," Phipps intervened. "The magnitude of our operations in wheat has been immensely exaggerated. We are not abnormally large holders. There are a dozen firms in the market, buying."

"Those dozen firms," was the swift reply, "are agents of yours."

"That is a statement which you cannot possibly substantiate," Phipps declared irritably. "It is simply Stock Exchange gossip."

"For once, then," Wingate went on, "Stock Exchange gossip is the truth."

"My dear Mr. Wingate," Phipps expostulated, "if you will discuss this matter, I beg that you will do so as a business man and not as a sentimentalist. Yon know perfectly well that as long as the principles of barter exist, there must be a loser and a gainer."

"The ordinary principles of barter," Wingate contended, "do not apply to material from which the people's food is made. I speak to you as man to man. You have started an enterprise of which I and others declare ourselves the avowed enemies. I am here to warn you, both of you," he added, including Lord Dredlinton with a sweep of his hand, "directors of the British and Imperial Granaries, that unless you release and compel your agents to release such stocks of wheat as will bring bread down to a reasonable price, you stand in personal danger. Is that clear enough?"

"Clear enough," Dredlinton muttered, "but what the mischief does it all mean?"

"You threaten us?" Phipps asked calmly.

"I do indeed," Wingate assented. "I threaten you. I threaten you. Peter Phipps, you, Lord Dredlinton, and I threaten your absent directors. I came over here prepared for something in the nature of a financial duel. I came prepared to match my millions and my brain against yours. I find no inducement to do so. The struggle is uninspiring. My efforts would only prolong it. Quicker means must be found to deal with you."

"You are misled as to your facts, Mr. Wingate," Phipps expostulated. "I can assure you that we are conducting a perfectly legitimate undertaking. We have kept all the time well within the law."

"You may be within the law of the moment," was the stern reply, "but morally you are worse than the most outrageous bucket-shop keepers of Wall Street. Legislation may be slow and Parliament hampered by precedent, but the people have never wanted champions when they have a righteous cause. I tell you that you cannot carry this thing through. Better disgorge your profits and sell while you have a chance."

Dredlinton tapped a cigarette against his desk and lit it.

"My dear fellow," he said, "you really ought to go into Parliament. Such eloquence is rather wasted in a City office."

"I rather imagined that it would be," Wingate assented. "At the same time, I warned you that if I came I should speak my mind."

Phipps did his best for peace. This was his enemy with whom he was now face to face, but the final issue was not yet. He spoke suavely and persuasively.

"Come, come," he said, "Wingate, you have changed since you and I fought our battles in New York and Chicago. To-day you seem to be representing a very worthy but misguided class of the community—the sentimentalists. They are invariably trying to alter by legislation conditions which are automatic. It is true that our operations over here may temporarily make bread dearer, but on the other hand we may be facing the other way within a month. We may be sellers of wheat, and the loaf then will be cheaper than it ever has been. I am an Englishman, and it is not my desire to add to the sufferings of my fellow countrymen."

"You don't care a damn about any one's sufferings," Wingate retorted, "so long as you can make money out of them."