"It is many years," he said, at length, "since I heard their talk. They
speak with their tongues and their teeth, but not their lips."

"And their throats," put in Marvin, eagerly. "That is because they are
of Teuton descent. So different from the French, eh, Turner?"

Turner nodded a placid acquiescence. Then he turned, as far, it would
appear, as the thickness of his neck allowed, toward Barebone.

"Saw in a French paper," he said, "that the 'Petite Jeanne' had put
in to Lowestoft, to replace a dinghy lost at sea. So I put two and two
together. It is my business putting two and two together, and making
five of them when I can, but they generally make four. I thought I
should find you here."

Loo made no answer. He had only seen John Turner once in his life--for
a short hour, in a room full of people, at Royan. The banker stared
straight in front of him for a few moments. Then he raised his sleepy
little eyes directly to Miriam's face. He heaved a sigh, and fell to
studying the burning logs again. And the colour slowly rose to Miriam's
cheeks. The banker, it seemed, was about his business again, in one of
those simple addition sums, which he sometimes solved correctly.

"To you," he said, after a moment's pause, with a glance in Loo's
direction, "to you, it must appear that I am interfering in what is not
my own business. You are wrong there."

He had clasped his hands across his abnormal waistcoat, and he half
closed his eyes as he blinked at the fire.

"I am a sort of intermediary angel," he went on, "between private
persons in France and their friends in England. Nothing to do with state
affairs, you understand; at least, very little. Many persons in England
have relations or property in France. French persons fall in love with
people on this side of the Channel, and vice versa. And, sooner or
later, all these persons, who are in trouble with their property or
their affections, come to me, because money is invariably at the bottom
of the trouble. Money is invariably at the bottom of all trouble. And I
represent money."

He pursed up his lips and gazed somnolently at the fire. "Ask anybody,"
he went on, dreamily, after a pause, "if that is not the bare truth. Ask
Colville, ask Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, ask Miriam Liston, sitting here
beside us, if I exaggerate the importance of--of myself."

"Every one," admitted Barebone, cheerfully, "knows that you occupy a
great position in Paris."

Turner glanced at