, I don't imagine your proposed plan is very desperate,
Diana; it's more liable to be dirty work. Never mind; you may command
me, my dear cousin--if the pay is ample."

"The pay will be ample if you succeed," she began.

"I don't like that. I may not succeed."

"Listen to me, Charlie. Do you know Arthur Weldon?"

"Slightly; not very well."

"I intend to marry him. He has paid me marked attentions in the past;
but now--he--"

"Wants to slip the leash. Quite natural, my dear."

"He has become infatuated with another girl; a light-headed,
inexperienced little thing who is likely to marry the first man who asks
her. She is very rich--in her own right, too--and her husband will be a
fortunate man."

Mershone stared at her. Then he whistled, took a few turns up and down
the room, and reseated himself.

"Evidently!" he ejaculated, lighting a cigarette without permission and
then leaning back thoughtfully in his chair.

"Charlie," continued Diana, "you may as well marry Louise Merrick and
settle down to a life of respectability. You've a dashing, masterful way
which no girl of her sort can long resist. I propose that you make
desperate love to Louise Merrick and so cut Arthur Weldon out of the
deal entirely. My part of the comedy will be to attract him to my side
again. Now you have the entire proposition in a nutshell."

He smoked for a time in reflective silence.

"What's the girl like?" he enquired, presently. "Is she attractive?"

"Sufficiently so to fascinate Arthur Weldon. Moreover, she has just been
introduced in our set, and knows nothing of your shady past history.
Even if rumors came to her ears, young creatures of her sort often find
a subtle charm in a man accused of being 'naughty.'"

"Humph!"

"If you win her, you get a wife easily managed and a splendid fortune to
squander as you please."

"Sounds interesting, Di, doesn't it? But--"

"In regard to preliminary expenses," she interrupted, calmly, "I have
said that your reward will be ample when you have won the game. But
meantime I am willing to invest the necessary funds in the enterprise. I
will allow you a thousand a month." "Bah! that's nothing at all!" said
he, contemptuously, as he flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

"What do you demand, then?"

"Five hundred a week, in advance. It's an expensive job, Di."

"Very well; I will give you five hundred a week; but only as long as you
work earnestly to carry out the plot. I shall watch