othing behind this show but business. What I do for
Miss Grace I do for cold cash. See? Of course, I take an interest in
the girl--"

"Interest at something like a hundred and fifty per cent., I suppose?"

"That's about the figure--With your permission, I'll remove that
fizz-gig out of your way--What do you think of it--my idea, I mean?"

"I think there's a d----d lot more interest than principle in it."

"You young goat! I'm out of it. Honour bright. So if you feel inclined
to slog away and boom the lady, there's no reason why you shouldn't."

"Is there any reason why I should?" inquired Rickman with treacherous
severity. So immense was his calm that Dicky was taken in by it and
blundered.

"Well, yes," said he, "in that case, we might consider our little
account settled."

"Our little account, Dicky, will be run up on the wrong side of the
paper if you don't take care."

"Wot d'you mean?"

"I mean that when you've got a particularly filthy job on hand, it's
as well to keep away from people who are not fond of dirt. At any
rate, I advise you not to come too near me."

Dicky for the first time that evening looked uncomfortable. It
occurred to Dicky that whisky and soda was not the very best drink to
talk business on.

"I've noticed, Rickman," said he, "that since you've been living down
in the country, you don't seem able to understand a joke."

But Rickman had got his legs on the other side of the window ledge,
and as Dicky approached him he slid down on to the esplanade and
slipped into the night.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Hardly knowing how he got there he found himself on the top of
Harcombe Hill. His head was bare and the soles of his thin slippers
were cut with the flints of the hillside lane. He had walked, walked,
walked, driven by a fury in his body and a fever in his feet.

His first idea had been to get as far away as possible from his
companion. He felt that he never could be clean again after his
contact with Dicky. How had the thing happened? Yesterday London
seemed as far away from Harmouth as Babylon from Arcadia, and Rickman
was not more infinitely removed from Lucia than Lucia was from Poppy;
yet here they were, all three tangled together in Dicky's complicated
draw-net. He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity,
and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth. This was what
it had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions. In
language as pla