with any kind of passable servant nowadays.
And Elizabeth is perfection--as a servant. As police--" she smiled a
little cruelly. "Well, we shan't go into that, but I think it would be
so much better to keep her. Then we'll be getting something out of her
in return for our blackmail, don't you see?"

"Perhaps. Still we have no need of discussing that now. I can only
say that if Elizabeth is to stay, she will have to--" "Reform? My
dear Sargent! When everything she did was from the most rigidly moral
motives? I had no idea she was such a _clever_ cat, though--"

"She will have ample opportunities of exercising her cleverness in
jail if I can find any means of getting her there, and I think I can.
Really," said Mr. Piper reflectively, "really when I think--"

Then he stopped.

"But you're still waiting for an--explanation--aren't you, Oliver?"

"Having been very nearly assassinated because of Elizabeth's abilities
in telephone conversation, I should think he might very well be
interested in knowing what is going to happen to her. However--"

"Yes," and Mr. Piper's face became very sober. He looked at his glass as
if he would be willing to resign the Presidency of the Commercial in its
favor if it would only explain to Oliver for him.

"You were saying, Sargent?" said Mrs. Severance implacably.

"I was. Well, I," he began, and then "You," and stopped, and then he
began again.

"I said that it would be--difficult--for me to explain matters to you
fully, Oliver; I find it to be--even more difficult than I had supposed.
I--it is rather hard for a man of my age to defend his manner of life
to one of your age, even when he himself is wholly convinced that that
manner is not---unrighteous. And in this particular case, to one of his
son's best friends."

He twisted his fingers around the rim of his glass. Oliver started to
speak but Mr. Piper put up his hand. "No--please--it will be so much
easier if I finish what I have to say first," he said rather pleadingly.

"Well--the situation here between Rose and myself--must be plain to you
now." Oliver nodded, he hoped in not too knowing a way. "Plain. How that
situation arose--is another matter. And a matter that would take a good
deal too long to tell. Except that, given the premises from which we
set forth--what followed was perhaps as inevitable as most things are in
life.

"That situation has been known to no other person on earth but
ourselves--all these years. And