help you."

"And in return?"

"I do not bargain. Lady Dredlinton," Phipps said slowly. "I must confess
that if you could regard me with a little more toleration, if you would
accept at any rate a measure of my friendship, would endeavour, may I
say, to adopt a more sympathetic attitude with regard to me, it would
give me the deepest pleasure."

Josephine shook her head.

"Mr. Phipps," she said, "you have the name of being a very hard-headed
and shrewd business man. You come here offering my husband's honour and
your banking account. I could not possibly accept these things from a
person to whom I can make no return. If you will let me know the exact
amount of my husband's defalcation, I will try and pay it."

"You cannot believe," he exclaimed almost angrily, "that I came here to
take your money?"

"Did you come here believing that I was going to take yours?" she asked.

Peter Phipps, who knew men through and through and had also a profound
acquaintance with women of a certain class, was face to face for once
with a type of which he knew little. The woman who could refuse his
millions, offered in such a manner, for him could have no real existence.
Somewhere or other he must have blundered, he told himself. Or perhaps
she was clever; she was leading him on to more definite things?

"I came here, Lady Dredlinton," he said, "prepared to offer, if you would
accept it, everything I possess in the world in return for a little
kindness."

Phipps had not heard the knock at the door, though he saw the change in
Josephine's face. She rose to her feet with a transfiguring smile.

"How lucky I am," she exclaimed, "to have a witness to such a
wonderful offer!"

Wingate paused for a moment in his passage across the room. His
outstretched hand fell to his side. The expression of eagerness with
which he had approached Josephine disappeared from his face. He
confronted Phipps, who had also risen to his feet, as a right-living man
should confront his enemy. There was a second or two of tense silence,
broken by Phipps, who was the first to recover himself.

"Welcome to London, Mr. Wingate," he said. "I was hoping to see you this
morning in the City. This is perhaps a more fortunate meeting."

"You two know each other?" Josephine murmured.

"We are old acquaintances," Wingate replied.

"And business rivals," Phipps put in cheerfully. "A certain wholesome
rivalry, Lady Dredlinton, is good for us all. In whatever camp I