She looked at the cigarette critically and with an exclamation of disgust threw it back on the desk. “Gold Flavours!” she said scornfully; “can you beat it, Mike? And he has a hundred thousand a year!” “You must make allowances for the decadence of the governing classes,” said the soothing Michael. He turned and nodded farewell to the girl and with Miss Tenby’s arm in his he passed out of the room, and Lord Flanborough and his daughter looked at one another in speechless amazement. CHAPTER II. MIKE SAID NOTHING--THERE WAS NOTHING TO SAY “You might do worse than lunch with me,” said Michael Pretherston. He stood outside Felton House with the girl whose belongings in one small Gladstone bag had been deposited on the curb, pending the arrival of a taxi-cab. “Why should I lunch with you?” she asked insolently. “I thought you were going to pinch me.” “Your vulgarity is appalling!” said Michael, shaking his head in reproof. “I cannot pinch you in the vulgar sense. I have no desire to perform that operation in the corporeal sense. You had better compromise and lunch with me.” The girl hesitated. “Think of my reputation,” she said. “Thoughts of your reputation keep me awake at night,” answered Michael lightly and called a taxi. They found a little restaurant in Soho and in an underground cellar where the bad ventilation was compensated for by a blaze of light, they ate their simple meal. “Now, Kate, I want to ask you what your little game is,” said Michael; “and I need the information because I know it isn’t a little game.” “I was scared sick over those pearls,” said the girl, ignoring the question. “It would have been horrible bad luck to have been taken for a job I had nothing to do with and such a paltry job, too!” “You owe me something,” said Michael. “I owe you more than I can ever repay you,” said the girl significantly. “I suppose one of these days,” suggested the detective after an interval of thought, “you will instruct some of your hired pals, Gregori or the Colonel or little Stockmar, to inflict on me a painful injury.” “You!” said the girl scornfully. “If there were not men like you in the police we should have been destroyed years ago! You are a sort of an insurance scheme and it pays us to keep you alive and well. Why, Crime Street would go into mourning the day you were buried.” “You are not trying to be rude to me, are you?” he asked. She looked at him slyly from under her long lashes and her eyes were dancing with fun. “Why do you think I went to Lord Flanborough?” she asked. He shook his head. “I’m blessed if I know,” he confessed. “Of course, I knew it was you the moment I heard of the rapid typewriting and the Italian songs. Now listen: I am not trying to speak to you for your good.…” “Don’t!” she said laconically. “But I have often wondered why a well-educated girl and a nice girl, as far as I know to the contrary, should prefer the life of a crook to.…”