r some
reason--and I need to be fit tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a decisive day."

So with the narrow-eyed little servitor in whose breast beat a heart of
unquestioning loyalty, the untriumphant victor went down into the
basement of his house, where between marble slabs and porphyry columns
he had equipped a small gymnasium finished with the magnificence of a
Roman bath.

Beyond an arched portal was another room where the basin of a
swimming-pool spread cool and inviting between mosaic floors.

Here each morning Hamilton plunged into the icy water and came out with
a splendid vitality glowing on his firm flesh. But at night he used only
the warm shower and when they came into the gymnasium they did not touch
the switch which lighted the pool.

Then Hamilton Burton stripped and attacked the punching bag until his
muscles glistened and shone as if they had been freshly oiled. Yamuro
stood looking on with sparkling eyes. Hamilton Burton stripped and in
action would have brought a glow of delight to the face of those
Hellenic masters of training who saw in the human body the most sacred
temple of the human soul, and paid tribute to physical perfection. The
flow and ripple of these strong, justly modeled sinews were like the
play of steel under satin and their smoothness was as rhythmic and full
of power as some young gladiator's, who might have stirred the
appreciation of Phidias or Praxiteles. When at last he had burned his
mental restlessness into physical weariness, Burton halted and stood
with his shoulders thrown back and his head erect, the breathing of
chest and abdomen as regular and deep as the sequence of waves at flood
tide. Yamuro went out into still another room for the accessories of his
Japanese art of muscle-kneading, and Hamilton turned idly toward the
darkened swimming pool. He strolled over to the edge of the marble basin
and walked out on the spring-board. It was all very dark in here, but
his feet were familiar with every foot of space.

"I might as well cap it with a plunge," he told himself, and, lifting
his hands above his head, launched outward in a graceful arc.

Yamuro came back a moment later and looked about the empty gymnasium.
His face suddenly went pale. "Mr. Burton--please!" he screamed, and in
his excitement his voice was more than ordinarily sibilant. Then he
turned on the pool light and rushed frantically back. It had not
occurred to him to warn his chief that that afternoon the basin