Montague Maynard let off one of his mighty bellows. "That was cheek if you like," he said, "though my little girl very soon sent him off with a flea in his ear. But you are forgetting, Aunt Sarah, that the boot was on the other leg in the case that made the Maharajah of Sindkhote the laughing-stock of London. The onion-seller is a compatriot of his inamorata. By the way, Nugent--you were pretty thick with his Highness--how did he take his knock-out?" Travers Nugent looked across the table at Leslie Chermside through the wealth of hot-house flowers, pondering his reply with greater deliberation than it seemed to demand. "As you know," he said at length, "the Maharajah left England within a few days of the ball at Brabazon House, where I understood that his discomfiture took place. I saw very little of him in the interval. Like all men worthy of the name who have set out to win a great prize and have met with failure, he was not one to admit defeat." "Hear that, Vi?" said the screw manufacturer, rising. "His Highness means to come back and have another try next season. There'll be a chance for you to be the pride of the harem yet, if you choose to think better of it." Violet's laugh, as she also rose to join in the general movement, rang out merrily, proving how lightly she had treated Bhagwan's wooing--how little she realized the smouldering danger that lurked for her in the steamer at Portland, lying ready to snatch her from peaceful Ottermouth to undreamed of horrors in the unspeakable East. "I hope he won't trouble," she said lightly. "I let him down easy last time, but if it occurs again I shall have to be rude." Leslie Chermside, following out of the dining-room, felt a prescience of coming peril for the beautiful speaker, and it was apart and separate from the plot in which he was to have taken such an ignoble part. From himself he knew that she would never have aught but loving fealty, and, so far as in him lay, protection. But in Nugent's words, uttered with such seeming carelessness, yet so well considered, there had, he could have sworn, sounded a note of menace, intended to be subtly conveyed to himself, that defeat was not admitted. And the pity of it was that in a day or two at most he must fly from Ottermouth, unless he remained to be branded by that dirty little Jew as an impostor. In either case, his championship would be a sorry thing to stand between Violet Maynard and the fresh devices he feared were already hatching in Travers Nugent's cunning brain. CHAPTER IV NUGENT MOVES A PAWN Mr. Nugent did not seek further private speech with Leslie Chermside while he remained at the Manor House. He acted in every respect as though he accepted the young man's renunciation as final, and after a saunter through the exquisite gardens with his host, asked that his car might be brought round. Having only reached Ottermouth the previous evening, he explained there were many things that claimed his attention at home.