the underworld."

"And the _a propos_ of all this?" asked Garstin

"You are beginning to see the morphia maniac, the drunkard, the cocaine
fiend, the prostitute, the--"

"Blackmailer?"

"Yes, the blackmailer, if you like, in everyone you meet. You live in
a sort of bad dream, Dick. You paint in a bad dream. If you go on like
this you will lose all sense of the true values."

"But I honestly do believe the man you want me to pick up and then
introduce to you to be a successful blackmailer."

"Why? Do you know anything about him?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then your supposition about him is absurd and rather disgusting."

"It isn't a supposition."

"What is it then?"

"Perhaps you don't realize, my girl, that I'm highly sensitive."

"You seldom seem so. But, of course, I realize that you couldn't paint
as you do unless you were."

"Instead of using the word supposition in connexion with a fellow
like myself your discrimination should have led you to choose the word
instinct."

"Oh?"

"Let's cross over. Catch on!"

They crossed to the side of the road next to Hyde Park.

"My instinct tells me that the magnificently handsome man who stared
at you to-night is of the tribe that lives by making those who are
indiscreetly susceptible to beauty pay heavy tribute, in hard cash
or its equivalent. He is probably a king in the underworld. Perhaps I
really will paint him. No, I'm not coming in."

He left her on the doorstep of the hotel and tramped off towards
Chelsea.

CHAPTER II

Craven went away from Berkeley Square that night still under the
spell and with a mind unusually vivid and alive. As he had told Lady
Sellingworth, he was now twenty-nine and no longer considered himself
young. At the F.O. there are usually a good many old young men, just as
in London society there are always a great many young old women. Craven
was one of the former. He was clever, discreet and careful in his work.
He was also ambitious and intended to rise in the career he had chosen.
To succeed he knew that energy was necessary, and consequently he
was secretly energetic. But his energy did not usually show above the
surface. Tradition rather forbade that. He had a quiet, even a lazy
manner as a rule, and he thought he often felt old, especially in
London. There was something in the London atmosphere which he considered
antagonistic to youth. He had felt decades younger in Naples in
summer-time. But that was all over now.