en."

And I laughed bitterly in my glass.

"Nice house?" said Raffles, glancing at himself in his silver
cigarette-case.

"Top shelf," said I. "You know the houses in Palace Gardens, don't
you?"

"Not so well as I should like to know them, Bunny."

"Well, it's about the most palatial of the lot. The old ruffian is as
rich as Croesus. It's a country-place in town."

"What about the window-fastenings?" asked Raffles casually.

I recoiled from the open cigarette-case that he proffered as he spoke.
Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry twinkle of mirth and
mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my
undoing two months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose
until the chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for
once I turned aside that luminous glance with front of steel. There
was no need for Raffles to voice his plans. I read them all between
the strong lines of his smiling, eager face. And I pushed back my
chair in the equal eagerness of my own resolve.

"Not if I know it!" said I. "A house I've dined in--a house I've seen
_her_ in--a house where _she_ stays by the month together! Don't put
it into words, Raffles, or I'll get up and go."

"You mustn't do that before the coffee and liqueur," said Raffles
laughing. "Have a small Sullivan first: it's the royal road to a
cigar. And now let me observe that your scruples would do you honor if
old Carruthers still lived in the house in question."

"Do you mean to say he doesn't?"

Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me. "I mean to say, my
dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very name no more. You began
by telling me you had heard nothing of these people all this year.
That's quite enough to account for our little misunderstanding. I was
thinking of the house, and you were thinking of the people in the
house."

"But who are they, Raffles? Who has taken the house, if old Carruthers
has moved, and how do you know that it is still worth a visit?"

"In answer to your first question--Lord Lochmaben," replied Raffles,
blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling. "You look as though you
had never heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the only
part of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't be expected
to keep track of all the peers created in your time. Your other
question is not worth answering. How do you suppose that I know these
things? It's my business to get to know them