"This business about her age changes everything. Carstairs has no legal rights over a nineteen-year-old daughter." "Legal rights! My dear Peter, you never supposed I thought I was doing anything legal, did you? No, no; the moral part of it has been my prop and stay all along, and that still holds. I promised without conditions, and I'll go ahead on the same terms." "Give me a match," said Peter thoughtfully. "Maybe you are right, Larry," he added presently. "I only wanted to point out another way of looking at it. I stand absolutely by your decision. You think that this girl is wrong-headed and obstinate, and that her father has a moral right to have her, over age or not. This--discovery makes it a pretty serious business, but of course you've thought of all that. But--will it be possible now?" "I have invited her," said Varney, with a light laugh, "to lunch on the _Cypriani_ on Thursday with two or three other Hunston friends." "Well?" "She accepted with every mark of pleasure. Great men like Stanhope, it seems, require no introduction: it beats me. The point now is to find the other Hunston friends." "Hare and his sister, Mrs. Marne--the very thing!--chaperon and all! I'll invite them to-night. Then the whole thing's done!" Peter sat silent a moment, looking at Varney. "I've been awfully rushed to-day," he resumed, "because if I was going to help Hare at all, I didn't dare lose this one big opportunity. But remember, anything that has to be done from now on--I'm your man." "There'll be nothing more now until Thursday. The thing's practically done." Peter was still looking at him steadily. "It's going to be dirt easy, provided we don't weaken. You can't do things to your friends, but you can emphatically do them to your enemies. We have got to remember always that this girl, who has been so heartless to her old fool of a father, is our enemy." "Yes, that is what we have got to remember." "Good Lord!" cried Peter, looking at his watch. "Twenty minutes past four, and I must be at the hall at four-thirty sharp. I'll have to sneak right away. You're going to sit tight on the yacht, of course?" "Never! I like to have a little of the fun myself. I must certainly take in this meeting to-night, and watch you put your heel on their necks and all that." "Don't! With what you've got to do, you can't afford to expose yourself. What's the use of running risks, even little ones, when there is nothing to gain?" "Satan reproving sin! Fudge! Free yourself once for all, my dear sir, that I'm starring in The Prisoner on the Yacht for the next three days, or anything of that sort." "Well, if you will go," said Peter, reluctantly, "here's a reserved seat ticket--a peacherine, right up at the front." "Great! Count on me to lead the applause." Peter rose. His engrossed brow advertised the fact that his thought had already flown back to his own private maelstrom of new concerns.