a helping hand in the game if the girl was to provide
the sport--or indeed in the other event. The one essential thing,
however, was that there should be a comedy, and he must see to it that
there was one, with which reflection he drew the bed-clothes comfortably
about him and went to sleep.

There was, however, one other condition equally essential to his
enjoyment, but so apparently inevitable that he did not stop to consider
it, namely, that Hugh Fielding should be a mere spectator. It did not
occur to him at all that he might be drawn into an unwilling assumption
of a part in his own play.

CHAPTER IV

Mallinson on reaching home unlocked a little oak cabinet which hung
against the wall beside his writing-table, and searched amongst a litter
of newspaper cuttings and incomplete manuscripts. He unearthed at last a
copy of the _Meteor_, bought between the Grand Hotel and Beaufort Gardens
on the night of Drake's dinner, and, drawing up a chair to the fire, he
read through the interview again. The something to be known was
gradually, he felt, shaping into a definite form; it had acquired
locality this very evening, as he was assured by the recollection of a
certain repressed movement upon Mr. Le Mesurier's part at the mention of
Boruwimi. Could he add to the knowledge by the help of the interview? Mr.
Le Mesurier had not known of its publication until to-night, and so
clearly had not read it; his knowledge was antedated. But on the other
hand it was immediately after the perusal of the article that Clarice had
sent through him her invitation to Drake.

Mallinson studied the article line by line, but without result.

He tossed the newspaper back into the cupboard, changed his coat, and
sat down to his writing-table with a feverish impulse to work. He was
unable to conceive it possible that Drake should be unaffected by Miss
Le Mesurier's attractions. The man was energetic, therefore a dangerous
rival. Miss Le Mesurier, besides, seemed bent upon pitting Drake and
himself against each other. Why? he asked. Well, whatever the reason,
he had a chance of winning--more than a chance, he reflected,
remembering a passage of tenderness that evening. His future was
promising, if only he worked. Perhaps Clarice only ranged the two men
opposite to one another in order to stimulate one of them; he reached
an answer to his question 'Why?'

The extravagances of a lover's thoughts have often this much value: they
disclose