you to leave."

Sir George turned on his heel.

"Very good!" he said. "I will go and take rooms elsewhere."

He left the hotel, and walked towards the Ritz. At the corner of the
Place Vendome an automobile was pulled up with a jerk within a few feet
of him. A tired-looking boy leaned over wearily towards him from the
front seat.

"Sir George," he said, "can you give me five minutes?"

"With pleasure!" he answered. "I was going into the Ritz. Come and have
something."

"To Maxim's, if you don't mind," the Vicomte said. "It will take us only
a moment."

Sir George stepped in. The Vicomte, in whose fingers the wheel seemed
scarcely to rest, so light and apparently careless was his touch,
touched a lever by his side, released the clutch, and swung the great
car round the corner at a speed which made Duncombe grasp the sides. At
a pace which seemed to him most ridiculous, they dashed into the Rue de
Rivoli, and with another sharp turn pulled up before Maxim's. The
Vicomte rose with a yawn as though he had just awoke from a refreshing
dream. His servant slipped off his fur coat, and he descended to the
pavement faultlessly dressed and quite unruffled. The commissionaire
preceded them, hat in hand, to the door. A couple of waiters ushered
them to the table which the Vicomte intimated by a gesture.

"I myself," he remarked, drawing off his gloves, "take nothing but
absinthe. What may I have the pleasure of ordering for you?"

Duncombe ordered a whisky and soda.

"I think," he said, "there is one thing which I ought to tell you at
once. I am being shadowed by the police. The man who has just arrived,
and who seems a little breathless, is, I believe, the person whose duty
it is to dog my footsteps in the daytime."

"What a pity!" the Vicomte murmured. "I would at least have taken you a
mile or so round the boulevards if I had known. But wait! You are
sure--that it is the police by whom you are being watched?"

"Quite," Duncombe answered. "The manager of the hotel has spoken to me
about it. He has asked me, in fact, to leave."

"To leave the hotel?"

"Yes! I was on my way to the Ritz to secure rooms when I met you."

The Vicomte sipped his absinthe gravely.

"I should not take those rooms," he said. "You will in all probability
not occupy them."

"Why not?"

"It has been decided," the Vicomte said, "that you are to be driven out
of Paris. In the end you will have to go. I think if I were you I would
not wa