into a paradise. I will do the same for yours."

"It doesn't take much to make me happy," Averil said, leaning her
forehead against his shoulder. "I hope you will be a kind master, Dick,
and let me have my own way sometimes."

"Master?" scoffed Derrick, kissing her hair. "You know you can lead me
by the nose from world's end to world's end."

"I wonder," said Averil, with a little sigh. "Do you know, Dick, I'm not
quite sure of that."

"What!" said Derrick softly. "Not--quite--sure!"

"Not when you look as you did thirty seconds ago," Averil explained.
"Never mind, dear old boy! I'm glad you can look like that, though,
mind, you must never, never do it again if you live to be a hundred."

She looked up at him suddenly and clasped her hands behind his neck.
"You do love me, don't you, Dick?" she said.

"My darling, I worship you!" Derrick answered very solemnly.

And Averil drew his head down with a quivering smile and kissed him on
the lips.

IV

CARLYON DEFENDS HIMSELF

"Ah, Derrick! I thought I could not be mistaken."

Derrick turned swiftly at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, and
nearly tumbled into the roadway. He had been sauntering somewhat
aimlessly down the Strand till pulled up in this rather summary fashion.
He now found himself staring at a tall man who had come up behind him--a
man with a lined face and drooping eyelids, and a settled weariness
about his whole demeanour which, somehow, conveyed the impression that,
in his opinion, at least, there was nothing on earth worth striving for.

Derrick recovered his balance and stood still before him. Speech,
however, quite unexpectedly failed him. The quiet greeting had scattered
his ideas momentarily.

The hand that had touched his shoulder was deliberately transferred to
his elbow.

"Come!" said his acquaintance, smiling a little. "We are blocking the
gangway. I am staying at the Grand. If you are at liberty you might dine
with me. By the way, how are you, old fellow?"

He spoke very quietly and wholly without affectation. There was a touch
of tenderness in his last sentence that quite restored Derrick's
faculties.

He shook his arm free from the other's hand with a vehemence of action
that was unmistakably hostile.

"No, thanks, Colonel Carlyon!" he said, speaking fast and feverishly.
"If I were starving, I wouldn't accept hospitality from you!"

"Don't be a fool!" said Carlyon.

His tone was still quiet, but it was also s