od open for a hazard, again waxed himself to the cushion, to the
infinite disgust of Griggs, who did indeed hit the ball this time, but
in such a way as to make the loss of another life from Griggs's original
three a matter of certainty. "I don't think it's hardly fair," whispered
Griggs to a friend, "a man playing always for safety. It's not the game
I like, and I shan't play at the same table with Doodles any more."

"It's all bosh," repeated Doodles, coming back to his seat. "She don't
mean to do anything, and never did. I've found her out."

"Found out what?"

"She's been laughing at you. She got your money out from under your
glove, didn't she?"

"Well, I did put it there."

"Of course, you did. I knew that I should find out what was what if I
once went there. I got it all out of her. But, by George, what a woman
she is! She swore at me to my very face."

"Swore at you! In French, you mean?"

"No; not in French at all, but damned me in downright English. By
George, how I did laugh!--me and everybody belonging to me. I'm blessed
if she didn't."

"There was nothing like that about her when I saw her."

"You didn't turn her inside out as I've done; but stop half a moment."
Then he descended, chalked away at his cue hastily, pocketed a shilling
or two, and returned. "You didn't turn her inside out as I've done. I
tell you, Clavvy, there's nothing to be done there, and there never was.
If you'd kept on going yourself she'd have drained you as dry--as dry as
that table. There's your thirty pounds back, and, upon my word, old
fellow, you ought to thank me."

Archie did thank him, and Doodles was not without his triumph. Of the
frequent references to Warwickshire which he had been forced to endure,
he said nothing, nor yet of the reference to Michaelmas dinners; and,
gradually, as he came to talk frequently to Archie of the Russian spy,
and perhaps also to one or two others of his more intimate friends, he
began to convince himself that he really had wormed the truth out of
Madam Gordeloup, and got altogether the better of that lady, in a very
wonderful way.

Chapter XXXVI

Harry Clavering's Confession

Harry Clavering, when he went away from Onslow Crescent, after his
interview with Cecilia Burton, was a wretched, pitiable man. He had told
the truth of himself as far as he was able to tell it, to a woman whom
he thoroughly esteemed, and having done so was convinced that she could
no longer enter