the same time
instinctively led the little girl towards one side of the road. She
apparently understood, for she asked no questions. There was a turn in
the drive a couple of hundred yards away, where the Elm Walk ended,
and an instant later an enormous white motor-car whizzed into sight,
rushed furiously towards the two, and was brought to a standstill in
an uncommonly short time, close beside them. An active man, in the
usual driver's disguise of the modern motorist, jumped down, and at
the same instant pushed his goggles up over the visor of his cap
and loosened the collar of his wide coat, displaying the face of
Constantino Logotheti.

'Oh, it's you, is it?' Mr. Van Torp asked the wholly superfluous
question in a displeased tone. 'How did you get in? I've given
particular orders to let in no automobiles.'

'I always get in everywhere,' answered Logotheti coolly. 'May I see
you alone for a few minutes?'

'If it's business, you'd better see Mr. Bamberger,' said Van Torp.
'I came here for a rest. Mr. Bamberger has come over for a few days.
You'll find him at his chambers in Hare Court.'

'No,' returned Logotheti, 'it's a private matter. I shall not keep you
long.'

'Then run us up to the house in your new go-cart.'

Mr. Van Torp lifted little Ida into the motor as if she had been a
rather fragile china doll instead of a girl nine years old and quite
able to get up alone, and before she could sit down he was beside her.
Logotheti jumped up beside the chauffeur and the machine ran up the
drive at breakneck speed. Two minutes later they all got out more than
a mile farther on, at the door of the big old house. Ida ran away to
find Miss More; the two men entered together, and went into the study.

The room had been built in the time of Edward Sixth, had been
decorated afresh under Charles the Second, the furniture was of the
time of Queen Anne, and the carpet was a modern Turkish one, woven
in colours as fresh as paint to fit the room, and as thick as a down
quilt: it was the sort of carpet which has come into existence with
the modern hotel.

'Well?' Mr. Van Torp uttered the monosyllable as he sat down in his
own chair and pointed to a much less comfortable one, which Logotheti
took.

'There's an article about you,' said the latter, producing a paper.

'I've read it,' answered Mr. Van Torp in a tone of stony indifference.

'I thought that was likely. Do you take the paper?'

'No. Do you?'

'No, it was s