“He _is_ an orator,--isn’t he?” she agreed,--“but he’s quite a nice boy, really. God didn’t give him brains and it’s not fair to make fun of a man’s deficiencies.” “What did you want of Reggie?” asked Michael. “I just wanted to know all about him,” she said, “that kind of people are always interesting to me.” “What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again. “How insistent you are!” she laughed. She got up and began strolling about the room, taking down books from the big bookshelf and examining their titles. “What catholic tastes you have, Mike--and Tennyson, too. How depraved!” “You will find a Browning somewhere,” he said carelessly. “That’s more encouraging,” she smiled. “It’s an awfully comfortable room. Quite like the room I thought you would have.” She looked at a book plate on the cover of one volume. “You were at Winchester, I see. So was uncle.” “The poison and the antidote!” “You are not fair with uncle. He’s a mental degenerate, too. Crime is a disease with him.” “And with you?” said Michael quickly. “It’s a hobby. It’s a tremendous excitement.” She put the book down and turned to him. “You don’t know what it’s like. To work things out and make them happen, to cover a couple of sheets of paper with writing and then see all sorts of things move in obedience to those instructions, to see thousands and tens of thousands of pounds change hands, to know that men are going long journeys, that special trains are being run, that telegraph wires are humming all over the Continent, that a dozen brilliant thief-catchers are working and worrying in a vain attempt to undo all that twenty or thirty lines of writing have done.” “This will be used in evidence against you,” warned Michael flippantly. The girl was not posing. Of that he was convinced. Her big grey eyes were brighter, her whole face was alight with the excitement of the thought, her voice had a new thrill. She was exalted, transfigured at the thought of the power which her shrewd brain gave to her. “What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again. The light faded out of her eyes and she was her normal self again. “Oh, I wanted to pick his pocket,” she said mockingly; “or, no, I know something better--I wanted to marry him. He’s worth two millions.” “I don’t think you will ever marry for money,” said Michael. “What makes you say that?” she asked quickly. He shrugged his shoulders. “That is the estimate I have formed of you. I may be wrong.” “I shall never marry,” she said with decision. “I’m not of the marrying kind. I hate men in some ways. I hate them so much, that it gives me a real joy to take away the one thing in the world that they really love. You know the Claude Duval tradition--I mean the idealized Claude Duval of tradition, not the sneak-thief valet of actuality--of robbing the rich and never robbing the poor--well, I rob men, and I never rob women.” “In fact you rob the people who have the money,” said Michael. “That isn’t clever.”