nt to ask you something else. Are you
Lawrence's enemy?"

"I? Why, of course not!"

"Then where do you come in?" she asked, bluntly. "You couldn't persuade
me that it is interest on my account which brings you here and makes you
tell me these things. You don't care a button for me."

Borrowdean took her hand and leaned forward in his chair. She snatched it
away.

"Oh, rot!" she exclaimed. "I may be a fool, but I'm not quite fool enough
for that. I'm simply a useful person for the moment in some scheme of
yours, and I just want to know what that scheme is. That's all! I'm not
the sort of woman you'd waste a moment with, except for some purpose of
your own. You've proved that. You wormed my story out of me very
cleverly, but I haven't quite forgotten it yet, you know. And to tell you
the truth," she continued, "you're not my sort, either. You and Lawrence
Mannering are something of the same kidney after all, though he's worth
a dozen of you. You've neither of you any time for play in the world, and
that sort of man doesn't appeal to me. Now where do you come in?"

Borrowdean looked at her thoughtfully. He had the air of a man a trifle
piqued. Perhaps for the first time he realized that Blanche Phillimore
was not altogether an unattractive-looking woman. If she had desired to
stir him from his indifference she could not have chosen any more
effectual means.

"I am not going to argue with you," he said, quietly. "I have ambitions,
it is true, and the world is not exactly a playground for me.
Nevertheless, I am not an ascetic like Mannering. The world, the flesh
and the devil are very much to me what they are to other men. But in a
sense you have cornered me, and you shall have the truth. I want to marry
the Duchess of Lenchester myself."

She nodded.

"That's right," she said. "Now we know where we are. You want to marry
the Duchess, and therefore you don't want her to have Lawrence. You think
that I can stop it, and as I don't want him married, either, you come to
me. That is reasonable. Now how can I prevent it?"

"By a slight variation from your story," he answered. "In fact, words are
not needed. A suggestion only would be enough, and circumstances," he
added, glancing around, "are strongly in favour of that suggestion."

"You mean--"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Mannering is security for your lease," he remarked. "You pay in his
cheques to your bank every quarter. He occupies just that position which
i