of the people said that the rest mustn't kill
pigs to eat 'm, that you and I would be wrong to have an illicit rasher
when we could get it. Anyhow, the immoral remnant of the nation doesn't
trouble my dreams. It rubs itself out in the end. So, you see, it wasn't
the dope evil that made me bind him in the chains of tangle-foot and
force his putrid company on an angel. Guess again."

"I'm too tired," said Amaryllis "to have a guess left in me. Tell me."

"My dear," he answered, "the cherry's always been bigger than the bunch
to me. You are just the greatest, and the roundest and the reddest, and
the sweetest cherry on the big tree. And the cherry nearest to you----"

"My dad?" she asked, interrupting with a catch of the breath.

He nodded.

"Yes," he said. "It was for him I took the dope from that scented
ape--because he'd have been hurt if it'd got loose to ravage the world.
And when I got the chance I just pouched the ape too for the same
reason--so that the man that cursed you shall not only feel that his
patent curse hasn't done any damage, but has even helped to chain up a
lot of rival plagues. These men of science are like benevolent Jupiters:
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday colloguing with Vulcan to forge heavier
and sharper thunderbolts; Thursday, Friday and Saturday conferring
anxiously with all Olympus as to how they shall be blunted and
lightened, lest they hurt poor mortal fools too much.

"This chap Melchard, properly handled, will give the show away, and the
League of Nations or some other comic crowd'll corral the lot."

"What lot?" asked Amaryllis.

"The crew your father told us about. My dear, I wanted to please you by
pleasing him. To do it I had to let you run a shade more risk and endure
a lot more discomfort. Was that--was it----"

For once Dick Bellamy could not find his words. Yet his eyes, it seemed
to Amaryllis, were hardened--stabbing hers with steel points barbed with
curiosity.

She knew what he meant, and said so.

"Of course it was nothing against me--against love," she answered. "It
was just the hook, dear, that's going to hold this fish for ever."

When they had expressed the inexpressible and explained the obvious, he
returned to that fish-hook phrase of hers.

"What made you put it like that, young woman?" he asked.

"Your eyes, Dick. For a moment you were afraid, wondering whether I
should toe the line exactly. Your eyes got hard. They stabbed right into
me, and they had a