of us any
good. When you oppose me, I find that that is the very thing I want to
do. You haven't any diplomacy."

"I would gladly cultivate it if I thought it would prove effectual,"
was the retort.

"Try it," advised Elsa dryly.

Warrington's appearance that afternoon astonished Elsa. She had
naturally expected some change, but scarcely such elegance. He was,
without question, one of the handsomest men she had ever met. He was
handsomer than Arthur because he was more manly in type. Arthur
himself, an exquisite in the matter of clothes, could not have improved
upon this man's taste or selection. What a mystery he was! She
greeted him cordially, without restraint; but for all that, a little
shiver stirred the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck.

"The most famous man in Rangoon to-day," she said, smiling.

"So you have read that tommy-rot in the newspaper?"

They sat on her private balcony, under an awning. Rain was
threatening. Martha laid aside her knitting and did her utmost to give
her smile of welcome an air of graciousness.

"I shouldn't call it tommy-rot," Elsa declared. "It was not chance.
It was pluck and foresight. Men who possess those two attributes get
about everything worth having."

"There are exceptions," studying the ferrule of his cane.

"Is there really anything you want now and can't have?"

Martha looked at her charge in dread and wonder.

"There is the moon," he answered. "I have always wanted that. But
there it hangs, just as far out of reach as ever."

"Two lumps?"

"None. My sugar-tooth is gone."

Elsa had heard that hard drinkers disliked sweets. Had this been the
Gordian knot he had cut?

"Perhaps, after all," she said, "you would prefer a peg, as you call it
over here."

"No, thanks. I was never fond of whisky. Sometimes, when I am dead
tired, and have to go on working, I take a little."

So that wasn't it. Elsa's curiosity to-day was keenly alive. She
wanted to ask a thousand questions; but the ease with which the man
wore his new clothes, used his voice and eyes and hands, convinced her
more than ever that the subtlest questions she might devise would not
stir him into any confession. That he had once been a gentleman of her
own class, and more, something of an exquisite, there remained no doubt
in her mind. What had he done? What in the world had he done?

On his part he regretted the presence of Martha; for, so strongly had
this girl wor