ther shortly. "I get them from a man in town.
A fellow I once met--Ivor Yardley, the K. C.--first introduced me to
them. I get them through his secretary who has some sort of interest in
the trade."

A sudden silence fell. Juliet's cigarette remained poised in the act of
kindling, but no smoke came from her lips. She had the look of one who
listens with almost painful intentness.

The flame of the lighted match licked Saltash's fingers, and he dropped
it. "Pardon my clumsiness! Let's try again! So you know Yardley, do you?"
He flung the words at Dick. "Quite the coming man in his profession.
Rather a brute in some ways, cold-blooded as a fish and wily as a
serpent, but interesting--distinctly interesting. When did you meet him?"

"Early this year. I consulted him on a matter of business. I have no
private acquaintance with him." Dick was looking straight at Saltash with
a certain hardness of contempt in his face. "You evidently are on terms
of intimacy with him."

"Oh, quite!" said Saltash readily. "He knows me--almost as well as you
do. And I know him--even better. I was saying to _Juliette_ just now
that I believe he shares the general impression that I have got Lady Jo
Farringmore somewhere up my sleeve. She did the rabbit trick, you know,
a week or two before the wedding, and because I was to have been the
best man I somehow got the blame. Wonder if he'd have blamed you if
you'd been there!"

Dick stiffened. "I think not," he said.

"Not disreputable enough?" laughed Saltash.

"Not nearly," said Juliet, coming out of her silence. "Dick has rather
strong opinions on this subject, Charles, so please don't be flippant
about it! Will you give me another match?"

He held one for her, his eyebrows cocked at a comical angle, open
derision in the odd eyes beneath them. Then, her cigarette kindled, he
sprang up in his abrupt fashion.

"I'm going. Thanks for putting up with me for so long. I had to come and
see you, Juliette. You are one of the very few capable of appreciating me
at my full value."

"I hope you will come again," she said.

He bowed low over her hand. "If I can ever serve you in any way," he
said, "I hope you will give me the privilege. Farewell, most estimable
Romeo! You may yet live to greet me as a friend."

He was gone with the words with the suddenness of a monkey swinging off a
bough, leaving behind him a silence so marked that the fall of an unripe
apple from the tree immediately above th