to him. But did she adore
him? Not "adore"--naturally--but had she a bit of a fancy for him?

Mr. Prohack became the youngest man in the room,--an extraordinary case
of rejuvenescence. He surveyed the room with triumph. He sniffed up the
brassy and clicking music into his vibrating nostrils. He felt no envy
of any man in the room. When the band paused he clapped like a child for
another dose of fox-trot. At the end of the third dose they were both a
little breathless and they had ices. After a waltz they both realised
that excess would be imprudent, and returned to the lounge.

"I wish you'd tell me something about my son," said Mr. Prohack. "I
think you must be the greatest living authority on him."

"Here?" exclaimed Lady Massulam.

"Anywhere. Any time."

"It would be safer at my house," said Lady Massulam. "But before I go I
must just write a little note to Lord Partick. He will expect it."

That was how she invited him to The Lone Cedar, the same being her
famous bungalow on the Front.

IV

"Your son," said Lady Massulam, in a familiar tone, but most
reassuringly like an aunt of Charlie's, after she had explained how they
had met in Glasgow through being distantly connected by the same
business deal, and how she had been impressed by Charlie's youthful
capacity, "your son has very great talent for big affairs, but he is now
playing a dangerous game--far more dangerous than he imagines, and he
will not be warned. He is selling something he hasn't got before he
knows what price he will have to pay for it."

"Ah!" breathed Mr. Prohack.

They were sitting together in the richly ornamented bungalow
drawing-room, by the fire. Lady Massulam sat up straight Sn her sober
and yet daring evening frock. Mr. Prohack lounged with formless grace in
a vast easy-chair neighbouring a whiskey-and-soda. She had not asked him
to smoke; he did not smoke, and he had no wish to smoke. She was a
gorgeously mature specimen of a woman. He imagined her young, and he
decided that he preferred the autumn to the spring. She went on talking
of finance.

"She is moving in regions that Eve can never know," he thought. "But how
did Eve perceive that she had taken a fancy to me?"

The alleged danger to Charlie scarcely disturbed him. Her appreciation
or depreciation of Charlie interested him only in so far as it was a
vehicle for the expression of her personality. He had never met such a
woman. He responded to her with a vivacity tha