Before the nabob awoke, Captain Henry Hardwicke, swinging away on his
morning gallop, had reviewed the strange attitude of Major Hawke. "He is
very intimate with Hugh Johnstone, and he is a man of the world, too. I
will yet see this charming child, when the ban of her prison seclusion
is lifted." He vaguely remembered the one timid and girlish glance of
the beautiful dark eyes, when he had been presented, pro-forma, to the
Veiled Rose upon that one memorable state visit. He then rode out of his
way to gaze at the exterior of the great marble house, and was rewarded
by the sight of a graceful woman walking there under her governess's
escort in the dewy freshness of the early morn.

He doffed his helmet as Miss Justine paused among the flowers, and then
Miss Nadine Johnstone looked up to see the graceful rider disappear
behind the fringing trees.

"That was Captain Hardwicke, was it not?" asked the lonely girl. Miss
Justine was busied in dreaming of her meeting of the morrow.

"Yes, it was," she absently replied.

"They tell me that he nobly risked his life to save his wounded friend,"
dreamily continued Nadine. "He gave back to a father the life of an only
son at the risk of his own. How brave--how noble." And Justine gazed at
her charge in surprise, as the beautiful Nadine bent her head to greet
her sister flowers.

The resolute Major Hawke, at his cheerful breakfast, was busied with
thoughts of the coming arrival of Hugh Johnstone's secret foe. "I must
have money from her at once to swing Ram Lal's Private Inquiry Bureau
and to mystify these quid nuncs here. For I must entertain the clubmen a
bit. It's as well to begin, also, to pot down a bit of her money for
the future. She shall pay her way, as she goes." And, with a view to the
further cementing of his rising social pyramid, he planned a very neat
little dinner of half a dozen of the most available men whom he had
selected as being "in the swim." "The next thing is to discover what the
devil she really wants of old Johnstone! She must show her hand now, and
then soon call on me for help."

He gazed at his little memorandum of "pressing engagements." "A pretty
fair book of events. First, old Johnstone's dinner--more of the
boring process--then to welcome my strange employer, and, after that,
Mademoiselle Justine! Later, I'll have my own little innings with
General Willoughby, and, finally play the gracious host while Ram Lal
watches Madame Louison's cat-lik