“Yes.”

“And you took her advice, the advice of a mere girl!” he laughed contemptuously.

“Luck is always with her,” the Captain answered. “She sat beside me and prompted me on the occasion of my last big coup at roulette.”

“A sort of sorceress, eh?”

Brooker smiled coldly, but again made no reply. “Well,” continued his companion. “Do you intend to accept my proposal?”

“Certainly not,” replied the luckless gamester. “I’ll never sacrifice my daughter’s happiness.”

“Rubbish!”

“I have already decided.”

Zertho was silent; his features became fierce and authoritative. His was an arrestive face, indicating rare, possibly prodigious, mental and also bodily activity, an activity that, unless curbed and restrained by carefully cultivated habits, might become distorted, and thus become injurious to himself as well as to others. Two rows of strong white teeth redeemed a large mouth from the commonplace, but those teeth were seldom seen—never, indeed, unless their owner laughed, and if smiles were rare, laughter still more rarely disturbed the steady composure of that saturnine countenance. Yet there was an individuality about the man which produced interest, though not always an agreeable interest, much less liking. He made an impression; he produced an effect upon the imagination that was not easily forgotten. Again, regarding the Captain keenly, he asked:

“Don’t you think I’m straight?”

“As straight as you ever were, Zertho,” the other answered ambiguously, with a light laugh. “But if you want a wife, surely you can fancy some other girl besides Liane. I’m afraid we know a little too much of each other to trust one another very far.”

There was another long silence. The golden sunset streamed in at the open window, which revealed an old-fashioned garden filled with fragrant roses, and a tiny lawn bounded by a hedgerow beyond. Through the garden ran a paved path to the white dusty road. The afternoon had been hot and drowsy. Upon the warm wind was borne in the sound of children at play in the village street of Stratfield Mortimer, while somewhere in the vicinity the shoe-smith’s hammer fell upon his anvil with musical clang. The house stood at the east end 

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