e had
done it. And men again wondered. Men had wondered when he led the
Countess out to waltz. That was nothing to this. What! A smooth-chinned
youth giving houses away--out of mere, mad, impulsive generosity.

And men said, on reflection, "Of course, that's just the sort of thing
Machin _would_ do!" They appeared to find a logical connection
between dancing with a Countess and tossing a house or so to a poor
widow. And the next morning every man who had been in the Sports Club
that night was remarking eagerly to his friends: "I say, have you heard
young Machin's latest?"

And Denry, inwardly aghast at his own rashness, was saying to himself:
"Well, no one but me would ever have done that!"

He was now not simply a card; he was _the_ card.

CHAPTER III

THE PANTECHNICON

I

"How do you do, Miss Earp?" said Denry, in a worldly manner, which he
had acquired for himself by taking the most effective features of the
manners of several prominent citizens, and piecing them together so
that, as a whole, they formed Denry's manner.

"Oh! How do you do, Mr Machin?" said Ruth Earp, who had opened her door
to him at the corner of Tudor Passage and St Luke's Square.

It was an afternoon in July. Denry wore a new summer suit, whose pattern
indicated not only present prosperity but the firm belief that
prosperity would continue. As for Ruth, that plain but piquant girl was
in one of her simpler costumes; blue linen; no jewellery. Her hair was
in its usual calculated disorder; its outer fleeces held the light. She
was now at least twenty-five, and her gaze disconcertingly combined
extreme maturity with extreme candour. At one moment a man would be
saying to himself: "This woman knows more of the secrets of human nature
than I can ever know." And the next he would be saying to himself: "What
a simple little thing she is!" The career of nearly every man is marked
at the sharp corners with such women. Speaking generally, Ruth Earp's
demeanour was hard and challenging. It was evident that she could not be
subject to the common weaknesses of her sex. Denry was glad.

A youth of quick intelligence, he had perceived all the dangers of the
mission upon which he was engaged, and had planned his precautions.

"May I come in a minute?" he asked in a purely business tone. There was
no hint in that tone of the fact that once she had accorded him a
supper-dance.

"Please do," said Ruth.

An agreeable flouncing swish of linen s