t be altogether under
the thumb of Lord Boxspur. So when I came South from Paris I simply
assumed the title--it simplified so many things. It both gave me
opportunities and protected me. If, to gain my ends and to reconnoitre
my territory, I became the occasional guest--remember, Jim, the most
discreet and guarded guest!--of Count Anton Szapary--who carried a
hundred thousand crowns away from the Vienna Jockey Club a month or two
ago--you must simply try to make the end justify the means. I was
still trying to get in touch with you. One of his automobiles was
always politely placed at my disposal. It was a chance, well, scarcely
to be missed. For, you see, it was my intention to meet His Highness,
the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, under slightly different
circumstances than would prevail if he and his valet should quietly
step through that door at the present moment!"

She laughed, a little bitterly, with a reckless shrug of the shoulders.
Durkin, nettled by the sound of tragedy in her voice, did not like the
sound of that laugh. Then, as he looked at her more critically, he saw
that she was white and worn and tired. But it was the words over which
she had laughed which sent him abruptly hurrying into the next room
with a lighted match, to read the hour from the little Swiss clock
above the cabinet.

"If we're after anything here we've got to get it!" he said, with
conscious roughness. "It's later than I thought."

"Very well," she answered, quietly enough.

Then she turned to him, as he waited with his hand on the bedroom
light-button, before switching it off.

"You need never be afraid that I will bother you with any more of my
hesitations, and scruples, and half-timid qualms, as I once did. All
that is over and done with. I feel, now, that we're both in this sort
of work from necessity, and not by accident. It has gripped and
engulfed us, now, for good."

He raised a hand to stop her, stung to the quick by the misery and
bitterness of her voice, still asking himself if it was not only the
bitter cry of love for some neglectful love's reply. But she swept on,
abandonedly.

"There's no use quibbling and fighting against it. We've got to keep
at it, and wring out of it what we can, and always go back to it, and
bend to it, and still keep at it, to the bitter end!"

"Frank, you mustn't say this!" he cried.

"But it's truth, pure truth. We're only going to live once. If we
can't be happy wi