the Colonel's study.
If there had been another in the drawing-room, I should have accepted
forthwith. As it was, I merely said that I could not think of disturbing
Miss Maitland.

"Pooh!" said the Colonel, with the usual callous disregard of the mere
father for his children's beauty sleep.

But he did not press the invitation. Indeed it was with difficulty he
succeeded in repressing a yawn.

"I'll call to-morrow, and get a considered opinion upon my Soho house of
entertainment," I remarked, as the Colonel opened his door, and paused
at the entrance to bid us a final good night.

"Glad to see you," he replied, as he grasped my hand and shook it
warmly. "But of one thing you may rest assured. So long as that bin of
port holds out, your house of entertainment may count upon me as a
regular customer whenever I dine in town."

"Opium isn't in it," commented Winter in a low voice, as he set the car
in motion and wheeled out of the drive. "How he could have slept so
soundly through it all absolutely beats me."

I did not reply. My attention was concentrated upon one of the upper
windows, at which I thought I had seen a form I knew very well make a
brief appearance. But we left the window and house behind us. Winter's
place was only about a hundred yards further up the road.

CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING MY RIVAL

"NOW, Jim, dip your beak into that, and let me see if it will not
restore to your classic features their customary repose."

So saying, Winter handed me a stately tumbler, and the mixture was so
much to my liking that I felt an involuntary relaxation of my facial
muscles immediately I obeyed the command. I stretched myself at length
in the easy chair which I had drawn up before the fire, and felt able to
forgive even the Motor Pirate. We were alone in the apartment which
Winter called his study, but since the only books he read therein were
motor-catalogues, and the lounges with which the snuggery was furnished
were much more conducive to repose than to mental exertion, I refused to
acknowledge its claim to the title. That, by the way. The fire was
burning brightly. Winter's red, rugged, honest face was beaming with
almost equal radiance. Who could help feeling happy?

Then Mannering was announced, and Mannering was a man I had learned to
passively dislike. Why, I scarcely knew. I was aware of nothing against
him. Indeed, when six months previously, on my first coming to St.
Albans, I had been introdu