* * * * * Dick Wantele sat as far from the fire as was possible, close to a window which he would have preferred to have open. His long, angular figure was bent almost in two over his knee, on which there lay propped up a block of drawing paper. He was drawing busily, sketching a small house, by the side of which was a rough plan of what was evidently to be the inside of the house. A heavily-shaded lamp left in shadow his pale, lantern-jawed face, only redeemed from real ugliness by its expression of alert intelligence. The two, unlike most men living in the difficult juxtaposition of owner and heir, were on the most excellent terms the one with the other. Theirs indeed was the happy kind of intimacy which requires no words, no futile exchange of small talk, to prove kindliness and understanding; and when at last Richard Maule spoke, he did not even turn round, for he was used to the other's instant comprehension and sympathy. "Then the Paches are bringing over General Lingard to dinner next Tuesday?" The younger man looked up quickly. "Yes, on Tuesday," he said. "Athena seems to think that will be the best day for them to come. You see, Jane Oglander will be here then." "I'm glad of that," said Richard Maule. "I hope their coming won't bore you, Richard. Athena couldn't get out of it. You see Pache practically asked her to ask them over. They want to show their lion, and they also want to entertain their lion! I confess I'm rather looking forward to seeing Lingard." "I've seen so many lions." Mr. Maule spoke with a touch of weary irritation. And then he added, after a rather long pause, "I never cared for soldiers, at any rate not for your modern man of war who goes out with a Gatling gun to kill a lot of poor niggers." "Lingard has done more than that, Richard. He succeeded where three other men had failed, and what is really wonderful, he did it on the cheap." "That I admit _is_ wonderful," said Richard Maule dryly, "but I don't suppose the people who are now fêting him are doing it as a reward for his economy. However, no matter, we'll entertain the Pachian hero." The mahogany door at the end of the long room opened, then it was closed quietly, and a woman came in, bringing with her a sudden impression of vitality, of youth, of buoyant strength into the shadowed, over-heated room. Athena Maule advanced with easy, graceful steps till she stood, a radiant figure, in the circle of warring light cast by the fire and by the shaded lamps. Her cheeks were flushed, tinted to an exquisite carmine that seemed to leave more white her low forehead and now heaving bosom. She stopped just between the two men, glancing quickly first at one and then at the other. And then at last, after a perceptible pause, she spoke, her clear accents, slightly foreign in their intonation, falling ominously on the ears of her small audience of two. "I've just had a letter from Jane Oglander."