further complaint of the house where she had spent the
night, had obtained a warrant and promptly raided the place, with the
result that her bag (with other missing property) had been recovered.
As they walked in the direction of the station, Mr. Napper asked her
how she had got on with Locke's Human Understanding. Upon her replying
that it was rather too much for her just then, he said:

"Just you listen to me."

Here he launched into an amazing farrago of scientific terms, in which
the names of great thinkers and scientists were mingled at random.
There was nothing connected in his talk; he seemed to be repeating,
parrot fashion, words and formulas that he had chanced upon in his
dipping into the works that he had boasted of comprehending.

Mavis looked at him in astonishment. He mistook her surprise for
admiration.

"I'm afraid you haven't understood much of what I've been saying," he
remarked.

"Not very much."

"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased
with himself.

Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.

"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"

"Most certainly."

"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of a
tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced
twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"

"What bad taste!"

"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't
offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of
scientific terms and all that."

"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.

"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."

Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her title to her
stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from
which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted
letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.

As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:

"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life paid
me."

"And what was that?" asked Mavis.

"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that time
she never understood what my scientific conversation was about."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TRAVAIL

If Mavis had believed that the recovery of her property would give her
peace of mind, she soon discovered how grievously she was mistaken.

Directly she left the police station with Mr Napper, all her old fears
and forebodings for the future resumed sway