"But, Ronnie, this is great news! Stop your car by the corner and find a man to hold my horse--there is an awful lot I want to talk to you about." He parked his car and, helping her dismount, handed the reins to an idle groom. A watchful attendant drew near. "You will have to pay for the seats, Ronnie, I have no money." "Happily I have two tickets," he said and realized his mistake before he drew them from his pocket. "I thought you hadn't been with your colonel's daughter more than five minutes?" she challenged and laughed, "I sometimes think that you'd rather lie than eat!" "My dear Beryl," Mr. Morelle's tone revealed both shock and injury. "Did I say that I didn't sit with her? I couldn't be so uncivil as to expect her to stand. The fact is, that she hinted that she would like me to drive her round the park and I had no wish to." "Never mind your guilty secret," she said gaily, "tell me all about your new job. Poor Ronnie, so they have made you work at last! I feared this." Ronnie smiled good-naturedly. "It is amusing," he said. "I was always rather keen on that kind of work, even when I was at Oxford. Sturgeon saw some verses of mine in one of the quarterlies and asked me if I would care to describe a motor-car race--the Gordon Bennett cup. I took it on and he seemed immensely pleased with the account I wrote. I feel that I am doing some poor devil out of a job, but--" "But it doesn't keep you awake at nights," she finished. "But how lovely, Ronald. You will be able to describe Mr. Steppe's trial--everybody says that one of these days he will be tried--" Ronald Morelle was not amused. She saw a frown gather on his forehead and remembered that he and Mr. Steppe had some association. "Of course I'm joking, Ronnie. How awfully touchy you are! Mr. Steppe is quite nice, and people invariably say unpleasant things about a successful man." "Steppe--" he paused. There was a nervousness in his manner and in his tone which he could not disguise. "Steppe is quite a good fellow. A little rough, but he was trained in a rough school. He is very nearly the cleverest financier in this country or any other." He would have changed the conversation had she not interpolated a question. "I do not know him--Sault you said? No, I've never met him. He does odd jobs for Moropulos. A half-caste, isn't he? What nerve the fellow had to come to the house! Why didn't you kick him out?" "It is obvious that you haven't seen him or you wouldn't ask such a question," she replied, her eyes twinkling. "I don't know what he does," Ronnie went on. "Steppe has a good opinion of him. That is all I know. He has three decorations for something he did in the war. He was in the Field Ambulance and brought in a lot of people from No Man's Land. He is quite old, isn't he?"