et Hunter do that--no
matter how--and the pilot's future was assured. Inglesby would be no
niggardly rewarder. But let the venture come to shipwreck and Hunter
must go down with it. Hunter was not left in any doubt upon that
score.

Brought face to face with the situation as it affected his fortune and
misfortune, Hunter must have had a very bad half an hour. I am sure he
had not dreamed of such a contretemps, and he must have been startled
and amazed by the cold calculation and the raw fury of passion he had
to deal with. I do not think he relished his task. His was the sort of
conscience that would dislike such a course, not because it was
dishonorable or immoral in itself, but because its details offended
his fastidiousness. I think he would have extricated himself honorably
if he could. It just happened that he couldn't.

Give a sufficient shock to a man's pocket-nerve and you electrify his
brain-cells, which automatically receive orders to work overtime.
Hunter's brain worked then because it had to, self-preservation being
the first law of nature. And this service for Inglesby not only spelt
safety; it meant the golden key to the heights, the power to gratify
those fine tastes which only a rich and able man can afford. Inglesby
had promised that, and he had just had a fair example of what
Inglesby's support meant.

One must try to consider the case from Mr. Hunter's point of view. To
refuse Inglesby meant disaster. And who was Laurence, who was Mary
Virginia, that he should quixotically wreck his prospects for them?
Why should he lose Inglesby's goodwill or gain Inglesby's enmity for
them or anybody else? Forced to choose, Hunter made the only choice
possible to him.

_Voe victis!_

CHAPTER XVII

"--SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY--"

Now I am only an old priest and no businessman, so of course I do not
know just how Hunter was set like a hound upon the track of those
circumstances that, properly manipulated, helped him toward a solution
of his problem--the getting of a girl apparently as unreachable as
Mary Virginia Eustis.

To start with, he had two assets, the first being Eustis pride.
Shrewdly working upon that, Hunter played with skill and finesse.

When he was ready, it was easy enough to meet Miss Eustis on the
street of an afternoon. Although her greeting was disconcertingly
cold, he fell into step beside her. And presently, in a low and
intimate voice, he began to quote certain phrases that