can wipe out that sort of thing."

"I'll do my best to make amends.... You're not looking at all well.
There's a big change in you. Monte Carlo does you no good--the reverse
in fact. Why not see a doctor and get him to prescribe you a tonic and a
quiet place to build up your health in? We'll go there together and
start our married life afresh."

"You've had your say--now let me have mine!" flung out Olive. "When we
married, I was mistaken too. I thought at the time you were a man who
could do things. I judged on your previous career. After we were
married, I found I was utterly misled. It isn't in you to climb to the
top. You've too many sides to your nature. First one thing pulls you one
way, and then another thing pulls you another way. To succeed, a man has
to run in blinkers--straight on without minding the side issues. I
imagined you a hundred per center, and I found you only a ninety per
center. You can't climb to the top--it isn't in you!"

"Climb to where?"

Olive looked around at the vast throne-room of the shipowner, and her
meaning was conveyed in the glance.

"Larssen has that final ten per cent.," admitted Matheson. "But do you
know what it means in plain language?"

"What?"

"Utter unscrupulousness. Utter ruthlessness. Napoleon had that extra ten
per cent. Bismarck had it. You're right when you say I haven't it."

Olive moved irritably in her chair. "Sour grapes," she commented.

"Call it that if you wish."

She dug her pen viciously into the polished surface of the desk, leaving
the holder quivering at the outrage.

"Larssen has been merely playing with you," continued Matheson. "I don't
want to blame, but to warn. I know the man far better than you do. He
thinks you might be useful to him."

"What are you going to do when the month is up?" she asked abruptly.

"What do you want me to do?"

She looked him straight in the eye, her pupils narrowed with hate. "Go
out of my life!"

"A legal separation?"

"No use at all. That ties me indefinitely."

"What then?"

"One of two things: divorce or disappearance."

"You mean a framed-up divorce? The usual arranged affair?"

"No, I don't. I mean a divorce with that Verney woman as co-respondent."

"I'll not have you insult her by calling her 'that Verney woman!'"

"Miss Verney, then.... It's either divorce or total disappearance."

"Larssen spoke glibly enough of disappearance, but the circumstances are
very different now from what they