"When I was called before the Board of Governors to explain the matter,
if I could, you were sitting on that Board."

"Yes."

"I denied the charge, but refused to explain. ... You remember?"

Quarrier nodded coldly.

"And I was dropped by the club!"

A slight inclination of Quarrier's symmetrical head corroborated him.

"Now," said Siward, slowly and very distinctly, "I shall tell you
unofficially what I refused to tell the other governors officially."
And, as he began speaking, Quarrier's face flushed, then the features
became immobile, set, and inert, and his eyes grew duller and duller, as
though, under a smooth surface the soul inside of him was shrinking
back into some dark corner, silent, watchful, suspicious, and perhaps
defiant.

"Mr. Quarrier," said Siward quietly, "I did not take that girl to the
Patroons Club--and you know it."

Quarrier was all surface now; he had drawn away internally so far that
even his eyes seemed to recede until they scarcely glimmered through the
slits in his colourless mask. And Siward went on:

"I knew perfectly well what sort of women I was to meet at that fool
supper Billy Fleetwood gave; and you must have, too, for the girl you
took in was no stranger to you. ... Her name is Lydia Vyse, I believe."

The slightest possible glimmer in the elder man's eyes was all the
answer he granted.

"What happened," said Siward calmly, "was this: She bet me she could so
disguise herself that I could safely take her into any club in New York.
I bet her she couldn't. I never dreamed of trying. Besides, she was
your--dinner partner," he added with a shrug.

His concentrated gaze seemed at length to pierce the expressionless
surface of the other man, who moved slightly in his chair and moistened
his thin lips under the glossy beard.

"Quarrier," said Siward earnestly, "What happened in the club lobby I
don't exactly know, because I was not in a condition to know. I admit
it; that was the trouble with me. When I left Fleetwood's rooms I left
with a half dozen men. I remember crossing Fifth Avenue with them; and
the next thing I remember distinctly was loud talking in the club lobby,
and a number of men there, and a slim young fellow in Inverness and
top hat in the centre of a crowd, whose face was the face of that girl,
Lydia Vyse. And that is absolutely all. But I couldn't do more than deny
that I took her there unless I told what I knew; and of course that was
not possible, even in