"What! am I not to have even a two days' respite, you indefatigable _machine_?" he said, as he walked across the room and threw himself into a chair with a sigh of annoyance. "Think! it was only this morning that I ventured upon the first casual bow of a fellow guest with the dear 'Baron'; only at luncheon we exchanged the first civil word. But the ice was broken and I should have had him 'roped in' by teatime--I am sure of it. And now you come and nip my hopes in the bud like this. And in a disguise that a fellow as sharp as he would see through in a wink if he met you." "It was the best I could do, Cleek--I'm not a dabster in the art of making up, as you know." Mr. Narkom's voice was, like his air, duly apologetic. "Besides, I hung around until I saw him go out before I ventured in; although I was on thorns the whole blessed time. I had to see you, old chap--I simply had to--and every minute was of importance. I shouldn't have ventured to come at all if it hadn't been imperative." "I'm sure of that," said Cleek, recovering his good humour instantly. "Don't mind my beastly bad temper this afternoon, there's a good friend. It's a bit of a disappointment, of course, after I'd looked forward to a clear field just as soon as Waldemar should return, but----It is you, first and foremost, at all times and under all circumstances. Other matters count as nothing with me when _you_ call. Always remember that." "I do, old chap. It's because I do that I went to the length of promising Miss Larue that I'd lay the case before you." "Miss Larue? A moment, please. Will the lady to whom you refer be Miss Margaret Larue, the celebrated actress? The one in question who treated me so cavalierly last August in that business regarding the disappearance of that chap James Colliver?" "Yes. He was her brother, you recollect, and--don't get hot about it, Cleek. I know she treated you very badly in that case, and so does she, but----" "She treated me abominably!" interposed Cleek, with some heat. "First setting me on the business, and then calling me off just as I had got a grip on the thing and was within measuring distance of the end. I can't forgive that; and I never could fathom her reason for it. If it was as you yourself suggested at the time, because she shrank from the notoriety that was likely to accrue to her from letting everybody in the world know that 'Jimmy the Shifter' was her own brother, she ought to have thought of that in the beginning--when she acknowledged it so openly--instead of making such an ass of me by her high-handed proceeding of calling me off the scent at its hottest, as if I were a tame puppy to be pulled this way and that with a string. I object to being made a fool of, Mr. Narkom; and there's no denying the fact that Miss Larue treated me very badly in that James Colliver case--very badly and very cavalierly indeed."