we start, may I ask?"

Chris responded coolly that she hoped to get away in the course of the
day. With a great show of virtuous resignation Lord Littimer consented.

"I have always been the jest of fortune," he said, plaintively; "but I
never expected to be dragged all over the place at my time of life by a
girl who is anxious to make me acquainted with the choicest blackguardism
in the kingdom. I leave my happy home, my cook, and my cellar, for at
least a week of hotel living. Well, one can only die once."

Chris bustled away to make the necessary arrangements. Some few hours
later Lord Littimer was looking out from his luxurious private
sitting-room with the assumption of being a martyr. He and Chris were
dressed for dinner; they were waiting for the bell to summon them to the
dining-room. When they got down at length they found quite a large number
of guests already seated at the many small tables.

"Your man here?" Littimer asked, languidly.

Chris indicated two people seated in a window opposite.

"There!" she whispered. "There he is. And what a pretty girl with him!"

CHAPTER XLIX

A CHEVALIER OF FORTUNE

Littimer put up his glass and gazed with apparent vacancy in the
direction of the window. He saw a tall man with a grey beard and hair; a
man most immaculately dressed and of distinctly distinguished appearance.
Littimer was fain to admit that he would have taken him for a gentleman
under any circumstances. In manner, style, and speech he left nothing to
be desired.

"That chap has a fortune in his face and accent," Littimer said. "'Pon my
word, he is a chance acquaintance that one would ask to dinner without
the slightest hesitation. And the girl--"

"Is his daughter," Chris said. "The likeness is very strong."

"It is," Littimer admitted. "A singularly pretty, refined girl, with
quite the grand air. It is an air that mere education seldom gives; but
it seems to have done so in yonder case. And how fond they seem to be of
one another! Depend upon it, Chris, whatever that man may be his daughter
knows nothing of it. And yet you tell me that the police--"

"Well, never mind the police, now. We can get Mr. Steel to tell Marley
all about 'John Smith' if we can't contrive to force his hand without.
But with that pretty girl before my eyes I shouldn't like to do anything
harsh. Up till now I have always pictured the typical educated scoundrel
as a man who was utterly devoid of feelings of any ki