slight emphasis which she put on the first word, or whether it was sheer generosity that impelled him, one can not say; but Roland produced the required sum even while she spoke. He offered it to his rival.     

       Mr. Potter started, turned a little pale, then drew himself up and waved the note aside.     

       “I take no favors,” he said with dignity.     

       There was a pause.     

       “Why don't you do it.” said Albert, nastily. “Five pounds is nothing to       you.”      

       “Why should I?”      

       “Ah! Why should you?”      

       It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It stung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an unpleasantly contemptuous manner.     

       In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had apparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.     

       “All right, then, I will,” he said suddenly.     

       “Easy enough to talk,” said Albert.     

       Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M. Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.     

       Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh hour.     

       “Don't let him,” she cried.     

       But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the sort of thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon.     

       For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He was experiencing that pleasant thrill which comes to a certain type of person when the victim of a murder in the morning paper is an acquaintance of theirs.     

       “What are you talking about?” he said. “There's no danger. At least, not much. He might easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What do you want to go interfering for?”      

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