"It’s awfully decent of you, Wolff," he broke out at last. "I’m really awfully grateful, and of course as soon as my money comes——" Wolff cut him short with an abrupt and contemptuous gesture. "I ask for no promises," he said, "and make no claim on your gratitude. What I have done was not done for your sake, but for Nora’s and my own. I do not wish the scandal of a disgraceful debt to be associated with my name. No doubt you do not understand my point of view, and there is no reason why I should explain it. There is one matter, however, on which I have the right to demand an explanation. You have run through something like £100 in the time that you have been here. Where has this money gone?" Miles shrugged his shoulders. The movement suggested that as between one man of the world and another the question was superfluous. "Oh, you know—the usual thing," he said. "Suppers, horses, and women. The people I know all did it. It was pretty well impossible to keep out of the swim." Wolff detached his sword and seated himself at the table; Miles remained standing, and Wolff did not suggest that he should change his position. "That means probably that you have other debts," he said. "Is that so?" "£100 goes nowhere," Miles answered sullenly. "I didn’t know they would come down on me so soon." "You have a curious way of answering a question. Still, I fancy I understand you. You will make a list of these other debts and lay them before me. After that, you will return to England." He saw Miles’s start of anger, and went on deliberately: "You have associated with the scum of Berlin, and therein I am perhaps to blame. I should have put an end to it before you drifted thus far. But I was under the illusion that at your age and as Nora’s brother you would be capable of behaving as a man of honour. Otherwise, I should never have allowed you in my house." He opened a drawer and began sorting out some papers before him, with the same deliberation, indifferent to the look of intense hatred which passed over his companion’s face. "You have proved that you cannot rise to so necessary a standard," he went on, "and therefore a prolongation of your stay under my roof has become impossible. Nora must know nothing of this, and there must be no fuss or scandal. You will write this evening to your father and request him to telegraph for you immediately—the possibility of war will be sufficient excuse. Until your departure you will behave as usual, with the exception that you do not leave the house. You will, of course, send your apologies to General von Hulson for to-morrow evening. I do not wish you to accompany us. That is all I have to say. You will do well to make no difficulties." Miles laughed angrily. "Do you think I’d make difficulties if I could help it?" he demanded. "I’d give ten years of my life to get back to England."