l could tell him. That you were in
Switzerland, and I had gone to England to visit a friend.

I sat and listened to the end of the story, saying never a word, though
I was in one of the moods which make me a person that nobody but myself
could stand for a moment. I should simply have smiled if wild horses had
come along to tear him in two.

"So you see," said he, at last, when I didn't speak, "I'm in the game
with you."

"It isn't my game," said I.

"You're playing it," said he.

"Because I have to," said I.

"Is it Sir Lionel who's making you play it?" he asked.

"Oh, dear, no," I broke out, before I stopped to think.

"Then, he isn't in it?"

I thought it looked more respectable to admit that, whatever the "game"
was, Sir Lionel and I were not playing it together.

"You're doing it for your friend," deduced our young detective.

I gently intimated that that was _my_ business. But Mr. Burden advised
me that I would be wise to accept him as my partner if I didn't want the
business to fail.

"What have I done to you, that you should interfere?" I wanted to know,
only I didn't dare--actually didn't _dare_, for Ellaline's sake, to
speak angrily. Oh, I did feel like a worm's paper doll!

"You've made me like you, awfully," he said.

"Then you shouldn't want to do me any harm," I suggested.

"I don't want to do you harm," he defended himself. "What I want is to
see as much of you as possible, and also I'd like to give Aunt Gwen a
little pleasure, thrown in with mine. I want you to ask Sir Lionel to
invite us to join your party. There's plenty of room for us in that big
motor-car of his. I went to see it in the garage to-day."

"You _would_!" I couldn't resist sputtering. But he took no notice.

"You needn't be afraid that Aunt Gwen's in this," he went on to assure
me. "I've kept mum as an oyster. All she knows is that I saw you--Miss
Lethbridge--in Paris, and haven't been the same man since. She helped me
get to know you, of course. She's a great chum of mine, and her being an
old pal of Sir Lionel's too, meant a lot for me in the beginning. She's
a ripper, and stanch as they make 'em--but they _don't_ make 'em
perfectly stanch where other women are concerned. And as long as you and
I hunt in couples she shan't have a suspicion."

"You'd tell her, if I refused to hunt in that way?" I asked.

"I might think it my duty to let Sir Lionel know how he's being
humbugged. At present I'm shuttin' my eyes to du