me, Grexon Hay is a man on the market."

"You made use of that expression before. What does it mean?"

"Ask Mr. Hay. He can explain best."

"I did ask him, and he said it meant a man who was on the marriage
market."

Hurd laughed. "Very ingenious and untrue."

"Untrue!"

"Certainly. Mr. Hay knows better than that. If that were all he wouldn't
think a working man would warn anyone against him."

"He guessed you were not a working man," said Paul, "and intimated that
he had a _liaison_ with a married woman, and that the husband had set
you to watch."

"Wrong again. My interest in Mr. Hay doesn't spring from divorce
proceedings. He paints himself blacker than he is in that respect, Mr.
Beecot. My gentleman is too selfish to love, and too cautious to commit
himself to a divorce case where there would be a chance of damages. No!
He's simply a man on the market, and what that is no one knows better
than he does."

"Well, I am ignorant."

"You shall be enlightened, sir, and I hope what I tell you will lead you
to drop this gentleman's acquaintance, especially now that you will be a
rich man through your promised wife."

"Miss Norman's money is her own," said Paul, with a quick flush. "I
don't propose to live on what she inherits."

"Of course not, because you are an honorable man. But I'll lay anything
you like that Mr. Hay won't have your scruples, and as soon as he finds
your wife is rich he'll try and get money from her through you."

"He'll fail then," rejoined Beecot, calmly. "I am not up to your London
ways, perhaps, but I am not quite such a fool. Perhaps you will
enlighten me as you say."

Hurd nodded and caught his smooth chin with his finger and thumb. "A man
on the market," he explained slowly, "is a social highwayman."

"I am still in the dark, Hurd."

"Well, to be more particular, Hay is one of those well-dressed
blackguards who live on mugs. He has no money--"

"I beg your pardon, he told me himself that his uncle had left him a
thousand a year."

"Pooh, he might as well have doubled the sum and increased the value of
the lie. He hasn't a penny. What he did have, he got through pretty
quickly in order to buy his experience. Now that he is hard up he
practises on others what was practised on himself. Hay is well-bred,
good-looking, well-dressed and plausible. He has well-furnished rooms
and keeps a valet. He goes into rather shady society, as decent people,
having found him out, won't have