d
business generally. I reckon he'd be even horrified to see you and me
here--though it was just a chance with both of us."

"I think not," said Brimmer dryly. "He knows Miss Montgomery already.
They're going by the same steamer."

Markham looked up quickly.

"Impossible! She's going by the other line to Panama; that is"--he
hesitated--"I heard it from the agent."

"She's changed her mind, so Keene says," returned Brimmer. "She's going
by way of Nicaragua. He stops at San Juan to reconnoitre the coast up to
Mazatlan. Good-night. It's no use waiting here for a cab any longer, I'm
off."

"Hold on!" said Markham, struggling out of a sudden uneasy reflection.
"I say, Brimmer," he resumed, with an enforced smile, which he tried to
make playful, "your engagement with Keene won't keep you long. What do
you say to having a little supper with Miss Montgomery, eh?--perfectly
proper, you know--at our hotel? Just a few friends, eh?"

Brimmer's eyes and lips slightly contracted.

"I believe I am already invited," he said quietly. "Keene asked me. In
fact, that's the appointment. Strange he didn't speak of you," he added
dryly.

"I suppose it's some later arrangement," Markham replied, with feigned
carelessness. "Do you know her?"

"Slightly."

"You didn't say so!"

"You didn't ask me," said Brimmer. "She came to consult me about South
American affairs. It seems that filibuster General Leonidas, alias
Perkins, whose little game we stopped by that Peruvian contract,
actually landed in Quinquinambo and established a government. It seems
she knows him, has a great admiration for him as a Liberator, as she
calls him. I think they correspond!"

"She's a wonderful woman, by jingo, Brimmer! I'd like to hear whom she
don't know," said Markham, beaming with a patronizing vanity. "There's
you, and there's that filibuster, and old Governor Pico, that she's just
snatched bald-headed--I mean, you know, that he recognizes her worth,
don't you see? Not like this cattle you see here."

"Are you coming with me?" said Brimmer, gravely buttoning up his coat,
as if encasing himself in a panoply of impervious respectability.

"I'll join you at the hotel," said Markham hurriedly. "There's a man
over there in the parquet that I want to say a word to; don't wait for
me."

With a slight inclination of the head Mr. Brimmer passed out into
the lobby, erect, self-possessed, and impeccable. One or two of his
commercial colleagues of maturer