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Don't laugh at me, Ingestow," said his sister.

"I don't. It's because I'm getting, in spite of the fear, awfully fond of you, that I'm telling you I think he is the only. I can't remember the words, but"

"

Ingenui vultus puer-" suggested Lady Mary, rather shy of her Latin.

That's it.
But

"Ingenui que pudoris," cried Ingestow. With all men, you know, one wants to play the game. with Anthony-well-you want to play the particular game— cricket as Anthony understands it."

"Well?" asked his sister.

"Well," answered Ingestow, "I want that girl. I think I want her pretty badly. But I don't want her at the expense of nephew Tony's esteem. And I can't make out whether he has or has not a sort of first call-you know-"

"Why don't you ask him?" said Lady Mary; almost forgetting the interests of the old Anthony in her new interest in the elder.

"That'd only force his hand-you must see that, Mary," replied Ingestow. "I'd wait, but he's such a queer boymight keep me hanging on ten years."

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I advise you," said Lady Mary, trying with little success to keep the elation of hope out of her face," to go ahead, Ingestow. Act as if there were no Anthony Frozier in the world but you."

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There isn't," said Ingestow.

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"How silly of me!" she cried. But Anthony Le Dane's half Frozier, you know, and naturally it's the half I think of."

"I'm afraid it is-and his is the only side you think of in the case I'm putting to you," said her brother. " I very much doubt, sister mine, whether you are a good umpire."

Lady Mary asked what he meant.

"I mean," he explained, "that you are not playing the game yourself."

'Umpires don't," said Lady Mary. "Don't shuffle," said Ingestow.

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I mean you'd rather

see me win-because you don't like the girl." Oh, Ingestow!" cried the woman.

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Oh, Mary!" retorted the man. "For Lady Ingestow she'd do well enough, no doubt. But Mrs Le Dane-! And you know the boy wants her. And you'll bless me if I blanket him, eh?"

"I'm not quite so bad," she replied, "as you think me, Anthony."

The name, applied to him by his sister for the first time, struck Ingestow's ear and heart with a tenderness quite new to them.

"For Tony," she continued, "I don't like her. But I can give you the ingenuous boy's own opinion on the rules of the game." "Oh!" exclaimed Ingestow. "Been putting him on his guard against his poaching uncle?"

"No-not exactly," she answered. "But I did say you seemed much struck with the girl. And even that was said against the grain, because I wanted to be honest with him, little as I wanted him to marry Miss Corder."

He nodded, vaguely wishing that brothers held equal rank with nephews at 7B Cheyne Walk.

"He said that nothing could make him think better of a man than to know that he was his rival."

"The only Tony's a bit of an egoist, after all," murmured Ingestow.

"And that the best woman in the world wouldn't be worth having, if getting her depended on being the first to ask."

"Was the child theorising, or speaking to a point?" asked Ingestow.

"He said he could see no obligation to stand on one side in such cases," continued Lady Mary; "and that a woman must know her mind, if she had any. He meant her heart -but he was shy of the word."

Ingestow rose, and stood looking at her, bending his ridingcrop in his hands.

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About either organ the statement would be rash," he said. "So I may go ahead? You see, sister Mary, I'm taking you for honester than most women."

"I am," said Lady Mary.

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That's another matter," she answered.

"If he should be annoyed by the result," said Ingestow, "you'd tell him you told me what he said?"

Her face flushed once more-this time with manifest indignation.

I shall tell him anyhow," she said.

Ingestow grunted, and turned towards the five steps.

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'You know I-I wish you good luck," faltered his sister. Oh, yes," he answered. "And I know why."

CHAPTER XVII

THURSDAY NIGHT

BETWEEN lunch and dinner Anthony worked hard. But all that he accomplished was done against the grain. One half of his mind was tempting him with the gracious image of Elmira, while the other half seemed shut off by two heavy curtains, between whose dark folds was ever and again protruded the face of Randolph Bethune, now benign, now sinister, but always insistent.

He dined alone in his flat, meaning to get through more work when he had eaten. But his dinner seemed to have. banished Elmira only to leave the other more intrusive than before. At last he pushed away his papers, giving up the pretence of labour.

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Damn Bethune! " he muttered. me, or I to Bethune?"

"6 What's Bethune to

Once out of doors, his steps rather than his intent took him to the club in Sackville Street.

"I'm not doing things myself to-night," he thought, pausing on the steps. "But I may as well go up. Forsberg's here, most likely, and I'll tell him I can't finish those papers till to-morrow.'

So he mounted slowly to the large smoking-room on the first floor, pausing at the head of the stair to light a cigarette. Just inside the swing doors he found it burning badly, and stood for a moment, coaxing the fire to perfect circumference.

Now, on his right, at a re-entrant angle of the room, was a group of five men, three sitting and two standing. And their talk was the growth of Beldover's sowing.

Some words of it came to Anthony's ears while his mind was blank.

The talk was in half-tones, but the voice that first struck him was of peculiar quality-a voice, it has been said, that was never heard a second time without immediate memory of the first. The man sat with his back to the doorway.

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You want to prove too much," he said, with enunciation no less perfect than the tones were penetrating. A likeness so striking is more probably the result of pure accident than of

immediate heredity. Did any of us ever see a son so like his father as that? I think there's been too much of this talkand I think I know who is keeping it going."

It was here that Anthony found he was listening. As he moved, another man answered the first speaker.

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Besides," said Corell, "if the old Colonel seems an improbable father, there's more against his wife on the score of age. Lady B-"

The first letter of a name was plain upon the youth's lips when he stopped, aghast and open-mouthed, staring at Anthony, who had drawn close to the group. The other men saw the change in the speaker's face; and when they saw the cause, they were silent with a great discomfort; each man trying to remember of what words he himself had been guilty.

"It seems," said Anthony, letting his eyes return, after a glance at the four other faces, to the last speaker, "-it seems I have fortunately saved Mr Corell from a grave indiscretion in the use of a lady's name."

Mr Corell did not like the tone of this remark, but had got no further in reply than the shutting of his mouth and a nervous licking of its edges, when Anthony turned his back, picked out Forsberg at the other end of the room, and went over to him.

"Axel," he said; and Forsberg laid down his newspaper; "there's something that's got to be done, and I don't, at the moment, trust myself to do it. Will you?"

"Yes," said Forsberg.

It's no business of yours, you know."

"Then it soon will be," replied Forsberg. "Sit down and speak low."

"There's a man over there-Hackney Fyson, the actor. D'you know him?"

"By sight. Seen him act. And you can't forget the voice, if you could the face."

"Not personally?

"Not yet."

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"Then perhaps you'd rather not-" began Anthony.

It makes no difference," replied his friend.

Well, then, I want to speak with him-alone-where we

can't be interrupted. If he won't come

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He will," said Forsberg, rising.

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Take a cab to my

rooms and wait. I'll bring him inside twenty minutes." "My place would do," said Anthony.

"It's going to be mine," said Forsberg.

Anthony nodded and walked straight out of the room and the club.

Hackney Fyson, when he saw the tall American sink back into his seat, and the man whose origin had been so wantonly discussed leave the room with white face, straight lips and set eyes, knew that trouble was brewing. It was not only that he had a keen eye for what he called situation. He had also a conscience still capable of troubling him.

He knew the big man would rise again. He would not have been in London now, if he had not known, amonget other things, the different ways in which a man will sit down. And he knew that he himself would be better out of that smokingroom. But three years of London and success, after thirteen of the provinces and America, had brought back to him some memory of the time when his name was not Fyson. So he sat grimly in his seat until Axel Forsberg rose, crossed the room and stood in front of him.

"You are Mr Hackney Fyson?" asked Forsberg.

The actor raised his eyes with studied slowness.

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That is my name," he replied. "But I'm afraid I don't know yours."

They eyed each other directly, as Forsberg told him his

name.

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Thanks," said Hackney Fyson. "And what can I do for you, Mr Forsberg?"

"I want you to come at once to my rooms with me," said Forsberg.

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For what purpose?" asked the other.

"If I knew positively," replied Forsberg, "I'd tell you." "I feel disinclined to move," said Hackney Fyson, "unless you can explain."

Forsberg's mouth went grim, and a spark seemed to grow deep down in the steely blue eyes. I'll do my best,' " he said.

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A man has just left this room. He's a friend of mine. You, and four men that I guess are yours, have been talking loose gossip with little sense, no decency and a criminal lack of discretion. My friend heard some of it. He is a man and he wants an explanation. He is a gentleman, and so he has sent me to the man he thought the best of the scurrilous five."

Hackney Fyson was divided among three passionsshame, pride, and curiosity. He would have spoken, but,

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