e out, "Mr. Grisben's been lecturing me."

Mr. Lavington was helping himself to terrapin. "Ah--what about?"

"He thinks I ought to have given New Mexico a show."

"I want him to go straight out to my nephew at Santa Paz and stay there
till his next birthday." Mr. Lavington signed to the butler to hand the
terrapin to Mr. Grisben, who, as he took a second helping, addressed
himself again to Rainer. "Jim's in New York now, and going back the day
after tomorrow in Olyphant's private car. I'll ask Olyphant to squeeze
you in if you'll go. And when you've been out there a week or two, in
the saddle all day and sleeping nine hours a night, I suspect you won't
think much of the doctor who prescribed New York."

Faxon spoke up, he knew not why. "I was out there once: it's a splendid
life. I saw a fellow--oh, a really _bad_ case--who'd been simply made
over by it."

"It _does_ sound jolly," Rainer laughed, a sudden eagerness in his tone.

His uncle looked at him gently. "Perhaps Grisben's right. It's an
opportunity--"

Faxon glanced up with a start: the figure dimly perceived in the study
was now more visibly and tangibly planted behind Mr. Lavington's chair.

"That's right, Frank: you see your uncle approves. And the trip out
there with Olyphant isn't a thing to be missed. So drop a few dozen
dinners and be at the Grand Central the day after tomorrow at five."

Mr. Grisben's pleasant grey eye sought corroboration of his host, and
Faxon, in a cold anguish of suspense, continued to watch him as he
turned his glance on Mr. Lavington. One could not look at Lavington
without seeing the presence at his back, and it was clear that, the next
minute, some change in Mr. Grisben's expression must give his watcher a
clue.

But Mr. Grisben's expression did not change: the gaze he fixed on his
host remained unperturbed, and the clue he gave was the startling one of
not seeming to see the other figure.

Faxon's first impulse was to look away, to look anywhere else, to resort
again to the champagne glass the watchful butler had already brimmed;
but some fatal attraction, at war in him with an overwhelming physical
resistance, held his eyes upon the spot they feared.

The figure was still standing, more distinctly, and therefore more
resemblingly, at Mr. Lavington's back; and while the latter continued
to gaze affectionately at his nephew, his counterpart, as before, fixed
young Rainer with eyes of deadly menace.

Faxon, with what