" I said. "He's
too far above it--and us. You can do as you choose about your sister."

"I can make _her_ do as _I_ choose," he amended. "That's where my
scheme came in, and where it still holds good. When I read the news of
Pa and Ma Beckett arriving in Paris, it jumped into my head like a--like
a----"

"Toad," I supplied the simile.

"I was leaving it to you," said he. "I thought you ought to know, for by
a wonderful coincidence which should draw us together, the same great
idea must have occurred to you--in the same way, and on the same day. I
bet you the first hundred francs I get out of old Beckett that it was
so!"

"Mr. O'Farrell, you're a Beast!" I cried.

"And you're a Beauty. So there we are, cast for opposite parts in the
same play. Queer how it works out! Looks like the hand of Providence.
Don't say what you want to say, or I shall be afraid you've been badly
brought up. North of Ireland, I understand. We're South. Dierdre's a
Sinn Feiner. You needn't expect mercy from her, unless I keep her down
with a strong hand--the Hidden Hand. She hates you Northerners about ten
times worse than she hates the Huns. Now you look as if you thought her
name _wasn't_ Dierdre! It is, because she took it. She takes a lot of
things, when I've showed her how. For instance, photographs. She has
several snapshots of Jim Beckett and me together. I have some of him and
her. They're pretty strong cards (I don't mean a pun!) if we decide to
use them. Don't you agree?"

"I neither agree nor disagree," I said, "for I understand you no better
now than when you began."

"You're like Mr. Justice What's-his-name, who's so innocent he never
heard of the race course. Well, I must adapt myself to your child-like
intelligence! I'll go back a bit to an earlier chapter in my career,
the way novels and cinemas do, after they've given the public a good,
bright opening. It was true, what I said about my voice. I've lost
everything but my middle register. I had a fortune in my throat. At
present I've got nothing but a warble fit for a small drawing room--and
that, only by careful management. I knew months ago I could never sing
again in opera. I was coining money in New York, and would be now--if
they hadn't dug me out as a slacker--an _embusque_--whatever you like to
call it. I was a conscientious objector: that is, my conviction was it
would be sinful to risk a bullet in a chest full of music, like mine--a
treasure-chest. But the fools di