Such is the custom of the
stupid French! She had asked for eighteen thousand dollars in gold, and
they had sent her eighteen thousand dollars in gold. Hargrave put one of
the pieces into his waistcoat pocket. He wanted to show Mrs. Farmingham
how strangely the stupid French had made the blunder of doing precisely
what she asked. Then he strapped up the portmanteau, pushed it under the
bed, went out and locked the door. He asked the chief steward to put a
man in the corridor to see that no one went into his room while he was
out. Then he got the sapphires out of the safe and went over to the
Ritz.

He met Mrs. Farmingham in the corridor coming out to her carriage.

"Ah, Mr. Hargrave," she said, "here you are. I just told the clerk to
call you up and tell you to bring the sapphires over in the morning when
you came for the draft. I promised Lady Holbert last night to come out
to tea at five. Forgot it until a moment ago."

She took Hargrave along out to the carriage and he gave her the
envelope. She tore off the corner, emptied the sapphires into her hand,
glanced at them, and dropped them loose into the pocket of her coat.

"Was the money all right?" she said.

"Precisely all right," replied the American. "The Credit Lyonnais,
with amazing stupidity, sent you precisely what you asked for in your
telegram." And he showed her the twenty-dollar gold piece.

"Well, well, the stupid darlings!" Then she laughed in her big,
energetic manner. "I'm not always a fool. Come in the morning at nine.
Good-night, Mr. Hargrave."

And the carriage rolled across Piccadilly into Bond Street in the
direction of Grosvenor Square and Lady Holbert's.

The fog was settling down over London. Moving objects were beginning to
take on the loom of gigantic figures. It was getting difficult to see.

It must have taken Hargrave half an hour to reach the club. The first
man he saw when he went in was Sir Henry, his hands in the pockets of
his tweed coat and his figure blocking the passage.

"Hello, Hargrave!" he cried. "What have you got in your room that old
Ponsford won't let me go up?"

"Not nine hundred horses!" replied the American.

The Baronet laughed. Then he spoke in a lower voice:

"It's extraordinary lucky that I ran over to the Sorbonne. Come along up
to your room and I'll tell you. This place is filling up with a lot of
thirsty swine. We can't talk in any public room of it."

They went up the great stairway, lined with pain