ot been that he
was exceptionally strung up at that moment he would probably have gone
quietly off to one of his clubs. But who knew what that foolish old
woman at Claridge's might say to Miss Van Tuyn when she reached her
hotel? It really was essential in the sacred interest of truth that he
should forestall Fanny Cronin. The jockey--if it was a jockey--Miss Van
Tuyn was with must put up with an interruption. But the interruption
must be brought about naturally. It would not do to come up behind them.
That would seem too intrusive. He must manage to skip round deftly when
the occasion offered, and by a piece of masterly strategy to come upon
them face to face.

Seized of this intention Braybrooke did a thing he had never done
before; he "dogged" two human beings, walking with infinite precaution.

His quarry presently turned into the thronging crowds of Oxford Street
and made towards the Marble Arch, keeping to the right-hand pavement.
Braybrooke saw his opportunity. He dodged across the road to an island,
waited there till a policeman, extending a woollen thumb, stopped the
traffic, then gained the opposite pavement, hurried decorously on that
side towards the Marble Arch, and after a sprint of perhaps a couple of
hundred yards recrossed the street almost at the risk of his life, and
walked warily back towards Oxford Circus, keeping his eyes wide open.

Before many minutes had passed he discerned the graceful and athletic
figure of Miss Van Tuyn coming towards him; then, immediately
afterwards, he caught a glimpse of a blue shaven face with an aquiline
nose beside her, and realized that the man he had taken for a jockey was
Dick Garstin, the famous painter.

As Braybrooke knew everyone, he, of course, knew Garstin, and he
wondered now why he had not recognized his back at Manchester Square.
Perhaps his mind had been too engrossed with Fanny Cronin and the
outrage at Claridge's. He only knew the painter slightly, just
sufficiently to dislike him very much. Indeed, only the acknowledged
eminence of the man induced Braybrooke to have anything to do with
him. But one has to know publicly acclaimed geniuses or consent to be
thoroughly out of it. So Braybrooke included Garstin in the enormous
circle of his acquaintances, and went to his private views.

But now the recognition gave him pause, and he almost wished he had not
taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he
could say nothing he wanted