lone would be an easy prey
to every fortune hunter in India, should anything happen!" There was a
ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke's eyes as the aide grasped his hat
and stick. "I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can
of the 'distaff side of the line,' as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I
have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in
this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied
hands. Johnstone will probably hermetically seal the girl up till the
Kaisar-I-Hind has spoken officially. Then, if this delicate matter of
the hidden booty of the King of Oude is settled, the old fellow intends
to return to the home place he has bought. I'm told it's the finest old
feudal remnant in the Channel Islands, and magnificently modernized. The
government does not want to press him. You see they can't! The things
went out of the hands of the hostile traitor princes, and Hugh Fraser,
as he was, cajoled them from the custody of the go-betweens. We have
never gone back on the plighted word of a previous Governor-General! The
Queen's word must not be broken. I have a bit of persuading to do, and
some other little matters to settle!"

"Well, then, Anstruther, we may meet again on the line of the Indus,"
said Hawke, with his lofty air. "I have always preferred the secret
service to mere routine campaigning, for, really, the waiting spoils
the fighting! Poor Louis Cavagnari! He confirmed my taste for silent and
outside work! I was sent out from Cabul by him as private messenger just
before that cruel massacre, a faux pas, which I vainly predicted. He
taught me to play ecarte, by the way!"

"Then he was a good teacher, and you--a devilish apt scholar!" laughed
Anstruther, as he politely held the door open for the man who had coldly
fleeced him.

Alan Hawke's pulses were now bounding with the thrill of his
unlooked-for harvest! He experienced a certain pride in his marvelous
skill, and, restraining himself, he soberly paced along the corridor.
The excited aid-de-camp stood for a moment with his foot on the stair,
and then slowly descended. "He suspects nothing!" the amatory youth
murmured, as he passed out upon the broad Quai du Leman.

He walked swiftly along, gayly whistling "Donna e Mobile," with certain
private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument
erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his
scraped-up millions upon an alien city