ver seen Mr. Allerton,' remarked Mrs. Crowley, presently. 'He
must be a horrid man.'

'On the contrary, he's the most charming creature I ever met, and I
don't believe there's a man in London who can borrow a hundred pounds of
you with a greater air of doing you a service. If you met him you'd fall
in love with him before you'd got well into your favourite conversation
on bimetallism.'

'I've never discussed bimetallism in my life,' protested Mrs. Crowley.

'All women do.'

'What?'

'Fall in love with him. He knows exactly what to talk to them about, and
he has the most persuasive voice you ever heard. I believe Lady Kelsey
has been in love with him for five and twenty years. It's lucky they've
not yet passed the deceased wife's sister's bill, or he would have
married her and run through her money as he did his first wife's. He's
still very good-looking, and there's such a transparent honesty about
him that I promise you he's irresistible.'

'And what has happened to him since the catastrophe?'

'Well, the position of an undischarged bankrupt is never particularly
easy, though I've known men who've cavorted about in motors and given
dinners at the _Carlton_ when they were in that state, and seemed
perfectly at peace with the world in general. But with Fred Allerton the
proceedings before the Official Receiver seem to have broken down the
last remnants of his self-respect. He was glad to get rid of his
children, and Lady Kelsey was only too happy to provide for them. Heaven
only knows how he's lived during the last two years. He's still occupied
with a variety of crack-brained schemes, and he's been to me more than
once for money to finance them with.'

'I hope you weren't such a fool as to give it.'

'I wasn't. I flatter myself that I combined frankness with good-nature
in the right proportion, and in the end he was always satisfied with the
nimble fiver. But I'm afraid things are going harder with him. He has
lost his old alert gaiety, and he's a little down at heel in character
as well as in person. There's a furtive look about him, as though he
were ready for undertakings that were not quite above board, and there's
a shiftiness in his eye which makes his company a little disagreeable.'

'You don't think he'd do anything dishonest?' asked Mrs. Crowley
quickly.

'Oh, no. I don't believe he has the nerve to sail closer to the wind
than the law allows, and really, at bottom, notwithstanding all I know
of h