began to squeeze
inspiration from his knees.

"Am I permitted," he continued, aghast at the liberty he was taking, "to
know the name of the giver?"

"Certainly not," said Madame Beattie, but without offence. "I told you a
Royal Personage. Besides, everybody knows. If your people here don't,
it's because the're provincial and it doesn't matter whether they know
it or not. I will continue. The necklace, I told you, became almost as
famous as I. Then there was trouble."

"When?" ventured Weedon.

"Oh, a long time after, a very long time. The Royal Personage was going
to be married and her Royal Highness--"

"Her Royal Highness?"

"Of course. Do you suppose he would have been allowed to marry a
commoner? That was always the point. She made a row, very properly. The
necklace was famous and some of the gems in it are historic. She was a
thrifty person. I don't blame her for it. She wasn't going to see
historic jewels drift back to the rue de la Paix. So they made me a
proposition."

Moore was forgetting to be shy. He licked his lips, the story promised
so enticingly.

"As I say," Madame Beattie pursued, "they made me a proposition." She
stopped and Moore, pencil poised, looked at her inquiringly. She closed
her fan, with a decisive snap, and rose. "There," said she, "you can
elaborate that. Make it as long as you please, and it'll do for one
issue."

Weedon felt as if somehow he had been done.

"But you haven't told me anything," he implored. "Everybody knows as
much as that."

"I reminded you of that," said Madame Beattie. "But I know several
things everybody doesn't know. Now you do as I tell you. Head it: 'The
True Story of Patricia Beattie's Necklace. First Instalment.' And you'll
sell a paper to every man, woman and baby in this ridiculous town. And
when the next day's paper doesn't have the second instalment, they'll
buy the next and the next to see if it's there."

"But I must have the whole in hand," pleaded Weedon.

"Well, you can't. Because I sha'n't give it to you. Not till I'm ready.
You can publish a paragraph from time to time: 'Madame Beattie under
the strain of recollection unable to continue her reminiscences. Madame
Beattie overcome by her return to the past.' I'm a better journalist
than you are."

"I'm not a journalist," Weedon ventured. "I practise law."

"Well, you run the paper, don't you? I'm going now. Good-bye."

And so imbued was he with the unassailable character of her right