rnadine shrugged his shoulders.

"Why not the pleasure of this few minutes' conversation with you?" he
asked.

The Baron carefully selected a cigar, and lit it.

"That," he said, "goes well, but there are other things."

"As, for instance?"

De Grost leaned back in his chair, and watched the smoke of his cigar
curl upwards.

"One talks too much," he remarked. "Before the cards are upon the table,
it is not wise."

They chatted upon various matters. De Grost himself seemed in no hurry
to depart, nor did his companion show any signs of impatience. It was
not until the two people whose entrance had had such a remarkable effect
upon Bernadine, rose to leave, that the mask was, for a moment, lifted.
De Grost had called for his bill and paid it. The two men strolled out
together.

"Baron," Bernadine said, suavely, linking his arm through the other
man's as they passed into the foyer, "there are times when candor even
among enemies becomes an admirable quality."

"Those times, I imagine," De Grost answered, grimly, "are rare. Besides,
who is to tell the real thing from the false?"

"You do less than justice to your perceptions, my friend," Bernadine
declared, smiling.

De Grost merely shrugged his shoulders. Bernadine persisted.

"Come," he continued, "since you doubt me, let me be the first to give
you a proof that on this occasion, at any rate, I am candor itself.
You had a purpose in lunching at the Savoy to-day. That purpose I have
discovered by accident. We are both interested in those people." The
Baron de Grost shook his head slowly.

"Really," he began--

"Let me finish," Bernadine insisted. "Perhaps when you have heard all
that I have to say, you may change your attitude. We are interested in
the same people, but in different ways. If we both move from opposite
directions, our friend will vanish--he is clever enough at disappearing,
as he has proved before. We do not want the same thing from him, I am
convinced of that. Let us move together and made sure that he does not
evade us."

"Is it an alliance which you are proposing?" De Grost asked, with a
quiet smile.

"Why not? Enemies have united before to-day against a common foe."

De Grost looked across the palm court to where the two people who formed
the subject of their discussion were sitting in a corner, both smoking,
both sipping some red-colored liqueur.

"My dear Bernadine," he said, "I am much too afraid of you to listen any
more. You