disdained the police, but he could scarcely fail to
perceive that if the police should by accident gain a clue to the real
state of the case he might be placed rather awkwardly, for the simple
reason that in the eyes of the law it amounted to a misdemeanour
to conceal as much as he had concealed. He asked himself, for the
thousandth time, why he had adopted a policy of concealment from the
police, why he had become in any way interested in the Posen matter,
and why, at this present moment, he should be so anxious to prosecute it
further? To the first two questions he replied, rather lamely, that he
had been influenced by Nella, and also by a natural spirit of adventure;
to the third he replied that he had always been in the habit of carrying
things through, and was now actuated by a mere childish, obstinate
desire to carry this one through. Moreover, he was splendidly conscious
of his perfect ability to carry it through. One additional impulse he
had, though he did not admit it to himself, being by nature adverse to
big words, and that was an abstract love of justice, the Anglo-Saxon's
deep-found instinct for helping the right side to conquer, even when
grave risks must thereby be run, with no corresponding advantage.

He was turning these things over in his mind as he walked about the vast
hotel on that evening of the last day in July. The Society papers had
been stating for a week past that London was empty, but, in spite of the
Society papers, London persisted in seeming to be just as full as ever.
The Grand Babylon was certainly not as crowded as it had been a month
earlier, but it was doing a very passable business. At the close of
the season the gay butterflies of the social community have a habit of
hovering for a day or two in the big hotels before they flutter away to
castle and country-house, meadow and moor, lake and stream. The great
basket-chairs in the portico were well filled by old and middle-aged
gentlemen engaged in enjoying the varied delights of liqueurs, cigars,
and the full moon which floated so serenely above the Thames. Here and
there a pretty woman on the arm of a cavalier in immaculate attire swept
her train as she turned to and fro in the promenade of the terrace.
Waiters and uniformed commissionaires and gold-braided doorkeepers moved
noiselessly about; at short intervals the chief of the doorkeepers blew
his shrill whistle and hansoms drove up with tinkling bell to take
away a pair of butterf