ne
could wish. There is more than one way in and out. And once they think
you are placed for the night, it's more than likely they won't even set
a watch, but will trot off to report. Then you can slip away when you
will...." He stared, knowing a moment of doubt to which a hard little
laugh put a period.

"Oh, you needn't be so thoughtful of my reputation! If this were the
worst that could be said of me--"

Lanyard laughed in turn, quietly tolerant, and squeezed her hand again.

"You are a dear," he said, "but you need to be a far better actress to
deceive me about such matters."

"Don't be stupid!" her sulky voice retorted.

"I'm not."

He bent forward again, folding his arms on the ledge of the apron,
studying the streets and consulting an astonishingly accurate mental
map of Paris which more than once had stood him in good stead in other
times.

After a little the girl's hand crept along his arm, took possession of
his hand and used it as a lever to swing him back to face her.

In the stronger lighting of the Boulevard Haussmann her face seemed
oddly childlike, oddly luminous with appeal.

"Please, petit Monsieur Paul! I ask it of you, I wish it.... To please
me?"

"O Lord!" Lanyard sighed--"how is one to resist when you plead so
prettily to be compromised?"

"Since that's settled"--of a sudden the imploring child was replaced by
self-possessed Mademoiselle Athenais Reneaux--"you may have your hand
back again. I assure you I have no more use for it."

The hansom turned off the boulevard, affording Lanyard an opportunity
to look back through the side window.

"Still on the trail," he announced. "But they've got the lights on
now."

With a profound sigh from the heart the horse stopped in front of a
corner apartment building and later, with a groan almost human,
responded to the whip and jingled the hansom away, leaving Lanyard the
poorer by the exorbitant fare he had promised and something more.

Athenais was already at the main entrance, ringing for the concierge.
Lanyard hastened to join her, but before he could cross the sidewalk a
motor-car poked its nose round the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann, a
short block away, and bore swiftly their way, seeming to search the
street suspiciously with its blank, lidless eyes of glare.

"Peste!" breathed the girl. "I have a private entrance and my own key.
We could have used that had I imagined this sacred pig of a
concierge--!"

The latch clicked. S