murmured to a friend, as he called
for a brandy pawnee. "Beastly bore! Must wait orders here for some
time!"

Skilled at tossing the ball of conversation to and fro, Major Alan
Hawke, while at luncheon, artfully planted seeds here and there, to be
neatly dished up later for that incipient baronet, Hugh Johnstone. And
yet a graceful shade of dignified reserve lent color to his rumored
advancement, and the schemer leaned over the writing table with quite a
foreign-office air as he indited his diplomatic note of arrival to his
destined prey.

With a grave air he selected his rooms and accommodations to suit his
swelling port, and even the club stewards nodded in recognition of the
tidal wave of Alan Hawke's mended fortunes.

With due official gravity the man "who had dropped into a good thing,"
disappeared, to allow the gilded youth of Delhi to carry the gossip to
mess and bungalow. It was a welcome morsel to these merry crows!

It was late when the handsome Major returned to find a small pyramid of
notes on his table and many letters in his box. He was in the highest
good humor, for the wary Ram Lal had most diplomatically acquitted his
task of opening a secret communication.

"Just as I thought," laughed the Major, as he sipped his pale ale in Ram
Lal's spacious room of pleasaunce. "They all protest, woman-like, but
they all come!"

The watchful Swiss exile's heart fluttered tenderly in the far-off Lotos
land at the arrival of a secret friend of her sage sister. She longed
for the morning to meet her new friend. Alan Hawke's irresistible
attractions had pointed the praises which flowed smoothly over the
double crossed letter which had preceded him! The oily Ram Lal, a
veteran observer of many an intrigue, scented a budding rose of romance
in the Major's adroit coup, and the arrival of the only lady whom Alan
Hawke had ever socially fathered in Delhi.

"In three days I will be all ready! So you can telegraph to-night,"
reported the merchant, when the Major carefully went over all the
details of the proposed temporary establishment of the disguised Alixe
Delaviarne.

"Very good!" approvingly answered the dignified confidant and patron.
"See here, Ram Lal! You have only to serve me well in these little
private matters, and you shall handle all the coming Mem-Sahib's money
business here! She wants to be quiet. I am to direct all her private
matters! Not a word, however, to old Hugh!" The two men separated, Hawke