ng. "I expect the same friendly lack of
ceremony from you."

But that, for Plank, was impossible. All he could do was to care the
more for Siward without crossing the border line so suddenly made free;
all he could do was to sit there rolling and unrolling his gloves into
wads with his clumsy, highly coloured hands, and gaze consciously at
everything in the room except Siward.

On that day, at Plank's shy suggestion, they talked over Siward's
business affairs for the first time. After that day, and for many days,
the subject became the key-note to their intercourse; and Siward at
last understood that this man desired to do him a service absolutely and
purely from a disinterested liking for him, and as an expression of that
liking. Also he was unexpectedly made aware of Plank's serenely unerring
business sagacity.

That surface cynicism which all must learn, sooner or later, or remain
the victims of naive credulity, was, in Siward, nothing but an outer
skin, as it is in all who acquire wisdom with their cynicism. It was not
long proof against Plank's simple attitude and undisguised pleasure in
doing something for a man he liked. Under that simplicity no motive, no
self-interest could skulk; and Siward knew it.

As for the quid pro quo, Siward had insisted from the first on a
business arrangement. The treachery of Major Belwether through sheer
fright had knocked the key-stone from the syndicate, and the dam which
made the golden pool possible collapsed, showering Plank's brokers who
worked patiently with buckets and mops.

The double treachery of Quarrier was now perfectly apparent to Plank.
Siward, true to his word, held his stock in the face of ruin. Kemp
Ferrall, furious with the major, and beginning to suspect Quarrier, came
to Plank for consultation.

Then the defence formed under Plank. Legal machinery was set in motion,
meeting followed meeting, until Harrington cynically showed his hand and
Quarrier smiled his rare smile; and the fight against Inter-County
was on in the open, preceded by a furious clamour of charge and
counter-charge in the columns of the daily press.

That Quarrier had been guilty of something or other was the vague
impression of that great news-reading public which, stunned by the
reiteration of figures in the millions, turns to the simpler pleasures
of a murder trial. Besides, whatever Quarrier had done was no doubt done
within the chalk-marked courts of the game, though probably his sh