it pretty
reasonably."

Rickman's face emptied itself of all expression whatever.

"I say, you are a cool young cuss. Is this the way you generally do
business?"

"I'll think it over."

"Wouldn't think too long if I were you. It ought to go by auction, and
it might; only private contract's preferred."

"Why preferred?"

"Out of respect for the feelin's of the family."

Rickman's eyes were wandering dreamily from the matter in hand. They
had alighted on an enormous photograph of Miss Poppy Grace. For an
instant thought, like a cloud, obscured the brilliance of Mr.
Pilkington's face.

"Anyhow I've given you the straight tip," said Pilkington.

"Thanks. We'll send a fellow down to overhaul the thing."

"He'd better hurry up then. It _may_ have to go by auction after all.
But if you'd like the refusal of it, now's your chance."

But Rickman betrayed no enthusiasm.

"You'd better see the guv'nor about it."

Mr. Pilkington looked Rickman up and down, and encountered an
immovable determination in his gaze.

"Right you are. I'll send him word to-night. Ta-ta!" He turned again
in the moment of departing. "I say, he must send a good man down, you
know. It'll take an expert. There's a lot of old things--Greek and
Latin--that's something in _your_ line, isn't it?"

But Rickman's line at present was the line of least resistance. It was
ten past ten, and Poppy Grace was "on" from ten fifteen to ten forty.

CHAPTER IX

She was only an ordinary little variety actress, and he knew her
little programme pretty well by heart. But her fascinations were
independent of the glamour of the foot-lights. It was off the stage
that he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that at
the first blush of it seems impossible; for the great goddess Diana is
not more divinely secret and secluded than (to a young bookseller) a
popular Dance and Song Artiste in private life. Poppy's rooms were
next door to the boarding-house balcony, and it was the balcony that
did it.

Now, in the matter of balconies, if you choose to regard the receding
wooden partition as a partition, and sit very far back behind it, you
will have your balcony all to yourself, that is to say, you will see
nothing, neither will you be seen. If, however, you prefer, as Mr.
Rickman preferred, to lean forward over the railings and observe
things passing in the street below, you can hardly help establishing
some sort of communication with the next