“Who told you that?” he asked again, this time amused.

“Oh, a very prominent man,” she declared; and named him.

Staff laughed. “A too implicit belief in that theory, Mrs. Ilkington,” said he, “is responsible for the large number of perfectly good plays that somehow never get written—to say nothing of the equally large number of perfectly good playwrights who somehow never get anywhere.”[Pg 40]

[Pg 40]

“Clever!” screamed the lady. “But aren’t you wasteful of your epigrams?”

He could cheerfully have slain her then and there; for which reason the civil gravity he preserved was all the more commendable.

“And now,” he persisted, “won’t you tell me with whom you were discussing me in Paris?”

She shook her head at him reprovingly. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

“You can’t guess?”

“Not to save me.”

“R’ally?”

“Honestly and truly,” he swore, puzzled by the undertone of light malice he thought to detect in her manner.

“Then,” said she with decision, “I’m not going to get myself into trouble by babbling. But, if you promise to be nice to me all the way home—?” She paused.

“I promise,” he said gravely.

“Then—if you happen to be at the head of the companion-ladder when the tender comes off from Queenstown tonight—I promise you a huge surprise.”

“You won’t say more than that?” he pleaded.

She appeared to debate. “Yes,” she announced[Pg 41] mischievously; “I’ll give you a leading hint. The person I mean is the purchaser of the Cadogan collar.”

[Pg 41]

His eyes were blank. “And what, please, is the Cadogan collar?”

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