Steindal, manifestly ill at ease, glanced around the crowded restaurant. He soon recognized several _habitués_. One man, a well-known Stock Exchange broker, hastened to greet him. While they were speaking, I murmured to Karl: “Under the circumstances, is this wise?” “At any cost, I shall punish the man,” he said. “I had almost forgotten his existence. Fate sent him here to-night. I regret it, for one reason, but I rejoice for many.” The one reason, I fancied, was that the strain on his already weakening powers entailed by the subjugation of Steindal would demand a corresponding relaxation of the tension needed to preserve the woman he loved and the woman who loved him from relapsing into their lamentable excitations. I was right in this, as also in the surmise that the erstwhile purveyor of musical celebrities (Steindal was now a mining expert and a man of great wealth in share certificates) would prove a most stubborn subject before he yielded to the demands of telegnomic reciprocity. It was to be a contest of Mind against Matter, of the Soul in man against the Brute in man. That is a primeval fight, a battle begun ere many of the hills were fashioned or the oceans charted as we know them; nor did I doubt the issue of its latest renewal. But what form would it take? Would Karl kill Steindal? If Steindal were the bull of sacrifice, would Karl supply the fire to consume him before our very eyes? Haply, I had no opportunity for ordered thought. Events began to march, as they say on the Boul Mich, and, for a little time, I remained an outwardly quiet spectator of doings which soon set the restaurant in an uproar. Steindal, who had drawn somewhat apart in earnest conversation with his friend from Capel Court, came back to us. He looked confidently enough at Karl. Evidently he was determined to brazen out a difficult situation. “I feel a little _hors de concours_ in these garments,” he said, quite affably, speaking in the smooth, sibilant voice which reminded me of Karl’s likening his utterance to that of a boa-constrictor. “Ah, you speak French, too!” exclaimed Karl with a grim geniality. “The last time we met you indulged mostly in Spanish.” “The last time! We have never met before. I--er--think I have heard of you from a man named Constantine.” Certainly Steindal had splendid nerves. He arranged himself comfortably at the table. The chef of the Pall Mall Hotel had a great name for appetizing dishes, and Jules was hovering about with alert pencil and memoranda tablets. “Yes. Poor Constantine! Killed himself, didn’t he? Did you ever hear why?” Karl, I noticed, had his hands clasped and resting on the table. The significance of this attitude dawned upon me then. He thus completed some magnetic circuit of intense potency.