you on your new _regime_. They say 'Set a thief to catch
a thief'; no doubt 'Set a hind to rule a hind' will prove equally
efficacious." He had laughed.

"On the contrary," Nicholas's voice, suave and calm, had broken in upon
the laugh, "that is the very _regime_ I am now abolishing. 'Set a
gentleman to rule a hind' is the one I am about to establish, that is why
I have offered the post of agent to Mr. Antony Gray, son of a very old
friend of mine."

For one brief instant Curtis had been entirely non-plussed, the cut in
the speech was lost in amazement; then bluster had come to his rescue.

"So you have had recourse to a system of spying," he had said with a
sneer that certainly did not in the least disguise his fury. "Personally
I have never looked upon it as a gentleman's profession."

"The question of a gentleman's profession is not one in which I should
readily take your advice, Mr. Curtis," Nicholas had replied, smiling
gently.

Curtis had turned to the door.

"I did not come here to be insulted," he had said.

"Neither," Nicholas had retorted sternly, "have I paid you to insult my
tenants. You have accused me of a system of spying. You yourself best
know whether such a system was justified by the need. Though I can assure
you that Mr. Gray was no spy. He believed in my death as fully as you
did."

There had been some further conversation,--remarks it might better be
termed. The upshot had been that Curtis was leaving Byestry of his own
accord on the morrow; Antony took over his new post immediately.

It had not been till Curtis had left that Nicholas had broached the
subject of the tea-party the following day, and had requested Antony's
presence. The request had been firmly declined, nor could all Nicholas's
persuasions move Antony from his resolution.

"I am utterly unsociable," Antony had declared.

Nicholas smiled grimly.

"So am I, or, at any rate, so I was till Miss Devereux took me in hand."

"Miss Devereux!" Antony had echoed.

"Yes, she's at the bottom of this business," Nicholas had assured him,
"though what further plot she has up her sleeve I don't know. Why, if it
hadn't been--" And then, on the very verge of declaring that Antony
himself had been the real foundation of the whole business, he had
stopped short. Never in his life had Nicholas betrayed a lady's secret or
what might have been a lady's secret. They were pretty much one and the
same thing as far as his silence on the matter