said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis from
head to foot as he plunged into the water.

It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that a
letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home,
and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one of those
empty-minded individuals to whom other people's affairs are perpetually
interesting. The more private they are intended to be the more acute is
the interest they arouse. She would have opened this particular letter
in any case; the fact that it was marked "private," and diffused a
delicate but penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlong
haste rather than matter-of-course deliberation. The harvest of
sensation that rewarded her was beyond all expectations.

"Bertie, carissimo," it began, "I wonder if you will have the nerve to
do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don't forget the jewels. They
are a detail, but details interest me.

"Yours as ever, Clotilde."

"Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you
never heard of me."

For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie's correspondence diligently
for traces of possible dissipation or youthful entanglements, and at last
the suspicions that had stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justified
by this one splendid haul. That any one wearing the exotic name
"Clotilde" should write to Bertie under the incriminating announcement
"as ever" was sufficiently electrifying, without the astounding allusion
to the jewels. Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein
jewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own
roof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an
intrigue in which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie was
not due home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the
immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind.

"Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress," she screamed; "her name is
Clotilde," she added, as if she thought they had better know the worst at
once. There are occasions when more harm than good is done by shielding
young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of life.

By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible and
improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited
themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather than
wicked.

"Who i