heavens! it is amazing to think that I should ever have felt the least disquiet. You and your precious friends are cowards, every one of you.

“However, we will leave that subject now and proceed to another which is of more importance and interest to me.”

Draining his whisky-and-soda, Westerham leaned back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes, keeping his gaze on the pale and cowering Melun.

Then he reached out for the newspaper, in which during the afternoon he had read that the Prime[Pg 67] Minister was to give a reception on the morrow. Folding it carefully so as to mark the place, Westerham laid the paper down beside Melun and tapped the all-important paragraph with a quick, incisive finger.

[Pg 67]

“I would recall to your mind,” he said to the captain, “that I explained to you on the Gigantic that my sole object in returning to London was to make the acquaintance of the girl in the picture—the girl you informed me was the Lady Kathleen Carfax. Now I find you, even on this short acquaintance, such a braggart that I am inclined to doubt everything you say. So I am going to test your boast that you know Lady Kathleen, and that you have the entrée to Lord Penshurst's house. Did you lie to me on that matter or did you not?”

“I did not,” said Melun, with some signs of returning spirit.

In his excitement he would indeed have leapt from his chair, but Westerham gave him a little push in the chest which sat him down again.

“Not so fast,” he said, “you are here to listen to what I have to say.

“You tell me,” he continued, after a slight pause, “that what you said was true. In that case I demand as part of our bargain that you should take me to Lord Penshurst's to-morrow night.”

Melun became livid. “I will never do it,” he cried.

“You will not?” inquired Westerham with a little laugh.[Pg 68] “Surely it was part of our agreement that you should introduce me to all your friends. If you fail to keep that agreement, then I shall fail to keep mine; and I fancy that some of the authorities will be extremely interested in what I shall be able to tell them.”

[Pg 68]

Melun looked helplessly and almost pleadingly at Westerham. “But what 

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