o Ferney and come back on the one o'clock
boat."

There was a neat carte de visite in the inclosure.

"Now, I will wager that is not her name," he smiled as he read the
Italian script.

"I can certainly now afford to throw a day or so away on her. At any
rate, I will let her make the game. I must wait a day or so to send on
the Grindlay check," the wanderer mused, smiling genially upon the head
porter. Major Alan Hawke casually inquired, upon his leisurely descent,
"My friend?"

"Ah, sir! Paid his bill and left. Luggage already sent to the station
labeled 'Paris.'" Alan Hawke most liberally tipped the functionary. "I
think I will take a run of a few days up to Lausanne or Chillon myself;
the weather is delightful." He strolled over to the local Cook's Agency
and sent his treasure-trove check on to London for collection.

"I think that I will fight shy of this sleepy burgh," he ruminated, as
the little paddle-wheel steamer sped along toward Ferney, leaving behind
a huge triangular wake carved in the pellucid waters. "It might be
devilish awkward if Anstruther should find me here, hovering around his
fair enslaver. I may need this golden youth again, in the days to come!
He will be out of India for a couple of years, but I will not trust Fate
blindly. What the old Harry can she be up to?" He suddenly burst into a
merry peal of laughter, to the astonishment of the crowd of passengers.

"Fool that I am! I see it all now! Anstruther cleared out early! The
proprieties of the home of Calvin must be respected! After he has
adroitly pumped the intellectual fountain of the past dry, then a quiet
little breakfast tete et tete will give Madame Louison the time to fool
him to the top of his bent! The sly minx! Evidently she is cast for the
'ingenue' part in this little social drama! And her trump card is to
hide from me what she extracts from our Lovelace by the coy use of those
deuced fetching brown eyes and--other charms too numerous to mention!
But you shall tell me all yet, Miss Sly Boots!" And the Major dreamed
pleasant day dreams.

Life now seemed so different to the hopeful vaurien, with the physical
and moral backing of the four hundred and odd pounds! "I was a fool--a
damned fool, yesterday," he cheerfully ruminated. "If I only handle
this woman rightly, then I may get the hold I want on this old recluse
Johnstone, congested with the fat pickings of forty-five years. A
close-mouthed old rat is he, and yet it seems t