."

Mrs. Keith laughed. "Dick, you're a marvel and I'm glad adversity
hasn't soured you; but you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at
any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running
about with paint samples, but there's something pathetic in it that
spoils my amusement." Her face softened and she changed her tone.
"I'm a rather rich old woman, Dick, and your mother was a very dear
friend of mine. You must let me help you to something better."

"Thank you," he answered with a flush. "But you can't give me money.
It's curious that several of my friends have wanted to do so--first the
Colonel, then Bertram, and now you. Not flattering, is it? Suggests
that you doubt my talents, or that I look like a deserving object of
charity."

"You're incorrigible. It was the Blakes' misfortune that they could
never be serious, but I admire your pluck."

"We have our failings, but I'm boring you and I'll come back by and by
if you'll allow me. My American partner has been waiting for a word
with me since this morning."

"And you kept him waiting? That was a true Blake. But go to the man
and then tell the hotel people to give you places at my table. I want
to see your friend."

"He'll feel as honoured as I do," Blake said, and left her.

Harding was leaning back in his chair in the smoking-room with a frown
on his face when Blake joined him. He had a nervous alert look and was
dressed with fastidious neatness.

"You have come along at last," he remarked in an ironical tone. "Feel
like getting down to business or shall we put it off again?"

"Sorry I couldn't come earlier," Blake replied. "Somehow or other I
couldn't get away. Things kept turning up to occupy me."

"It's a way they seem to have. Your trouble is that you're too
diffuse; you spread yourself out too much. You want to fix your mind
on one thing and that will have to be business as soon as we leave
here."

"I dare say you're right. My interest's apt to wander; but if you take
advantage of every opportunity that offers, you get most out of life.
Concentration's good, but if you concentrate on a thing and then don't
get it, you begin to think what a lot of other things you've missed."

Harding made a gesture of resignation. "Guess you must be humoured;
I'll wait until you're through. That's a nice girl you stole the
bob-cat from, but if she were a sister of mine, I'd choke off that army
man who's been trotting round a