ill, you have
to do with a remarkably clever young man in the Count von Hern. I don't
want to ask you any questions you feel I ought not to, but I do wish
you'd tell me one thing."

"Go right ahead," Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge invited. "Don't be shy."

"What day are you concluding this affair?"

Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully and
glanced at his diary. "Well, I'll risk that," he decided. "A week to-day
I hand over the coin."

Peter drew a little breath of relief. A week was an immense time! He
rose to his feet.

"That ends our business, then, for the present," he said. "Now I am
going to ask both of you a favor. Perhaps I have no right to, but as a
man of honor, Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge, you can take it from me that I ask
it in your interests as well as my own. Don't tell the Count von Hern of
my visit to you."

Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge held out his hand.

"That's all right," he declared. "You hear, Myra?"

"I'll be dumb, Baron," she promised. "Say, when do you think Vi can come
and see me?"

Peter was guilty of snobbery. He considered it quite a justifiable
weapon.

"She is at Windsor this afternoon," he remarked.

"What, at the Garden-Party?" Mrs. Heseltine-Wrigge almost shrieked.

Peter nodded.

"I believe there's some fete or other to-morrow," he said, "but we're
alone this evening. Why won't you dine with us, say at the Carlton?"

"We'd love to," the lady assented, promptly.

"At eight o'clock," Peter said, taking his leave.

The dinner party was a great success. Mrs. Heseltine-Wrigge found
herself among the class of people with whom it was her earnest desire
to become acquainted, and her husband was well satisfied to see her keen
longing for society likely to be gratified. The subject of Peter's call
at the office in the city was studiously ignored. It was not until the
very end of the evening, indeed, that the host of this very agreeable
party was rewarded by a single hint. It all came about in the most
natural manner. They were speaking of foreign capitals.

"I love Paris," Mrs. Heseltine-Wrigge told her host. "Just adore it.
Charles is often there on business and I always go along."

Peter smiled. There was just a chance here.

"Your husband does not often have to leave London though," he remarked,
carelessly.

She nodded.

"Not often enough," she declared. "I just love getting about. Last week
we had a perfectly horrible trip, though. We started off for Belfast