Alixe Delavigne watched the carriage dash away. Hawke was on his mettle at last, and he brutally enjoyed the little tableau, when Hugh Fraser Johnstone impatiently tore open “Madame Berthe Louison’s” note. Hawke observed significantly that he had been shown into a small room, suited to semi-menial interviews. The additional slight maddened him. The clash of glasses and shouts of a gay crowd of military convives rose up in a merry chorus within. Across that banquet hall’s draped doors the thin, invisible barrier of “Coventry” shut out the bold social renegade. “She’ll have to wait, Hawke!” roughly said Hugh Johnstone, moving toward the door. “By God! she shall not wait a minute, you damned old moneybags!” cried the ruined soldier, who had long forfeited his caste--his cherished rank. “You treated her like a brute to-day! She is a lady, and you can’t play fast and loose with her! You insulted me by closing your damned door and sending me your offensive letter. Go to her now! If you do not, I’ll send my seconds to you, and if you don’t fight, by Heaven, I’ll horsewhip you like a drunken pandy!” and the fearless renegade barred the door. “Don’t be a fool, Hawke,” faltered Johnstone. “She has taken the whole thing the wrong way. I’ll join you in a moment. I’ve got these men on my hands. What did she tell you?” “Nothing!” harshly cried Hawke, “and I wash my hands of you and her. Settle your intrigues as you will!” Not a word was spoken, as Alan Hawke gravely opened the door to Madame Berthe Louison’s reception room. Hugh Johnstone’s yellow face paled as the Major breaking the silence, coldly said: “Madame! I have broken a friendship of fifteen years to-day! Please do consider me a stranger to you both after today!” And then he walked firmly out of the house with a warning glance to Jules Victor, lingering in the long hall. The quick Frenchman saw in Hawke’s gesture the secret sign of a hidden friend, and he threw up his hand in a Parisian gesture of gratitude and comprehension, and failed not to report to his mistress, who saw Hawke’s fine method with a secret delight. Hawke drove to Grindlay’s agency, where, in a private room, he promptly cashed his check. “I’ll take it in Bank of England notes!” he quietly said as the clerk lifted inquiring eyes. “I am going to transact some business for the lady.” “Now, I can defy Fate!” he exulted, when he was safe out of the bank. “She will trust me now, and old Johnstone will fear me. A case of vice versa!” And, as he drove to the Club, he murmured, “I will never leave this fight now! Damme! I’ll just go in and get the girl! Just to spite the old coward!”