nothing, is it?"

Jeroloman pulled at his long chin.

All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten
million was less than a tenth of his wealth--ten million for which he
had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to
hoard, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a
brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated.

Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he
knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him.

None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little
bottle.

"Settle it then."

"On what basis?"

"All and be damned to her."

But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the
bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned.

"And good-day to you."

Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat
again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had
ended before it began.

XXXVII

Cassy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The
letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque
begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call.

During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were
houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it
was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of
farewells.

Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive
beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had
seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But
their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the
building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one
thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else.

She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on
returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her
in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden
rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she
forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in
mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and
remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On
its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with
dreams come true. You have but a gest