Gorman, who has a cultivated taste for gossip, was greatly pleased when Dane-Latimer sat down beside him one day in the smoking-room of his club. It was two o’clock, an hour at which the smoking-room is full of men who have lunched. Gorman knew that Dane-Latimer would not talk in an interesting way before a large audience, but he hoped to be able to keep him until most of the other men had left. He beckoned to the waitress and ordered two coffees and two liqueur brandies. Then he set himself to be as agreeable as possible to Dane-Latimer. “Haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said. “What have you been doing? Had the flu?” “Flu! No. Infernally busy, that’s all.” “Really,” said Gorman. “I should have thought the present slump would have meant rather a slack time for you. People--I mean the sort of people whose affairs you manage--can’t be going it in quite the old way, at all events not to the same extent.” Dane-Latimer poured half his brandy into his coffee cup and smiled. Gorman, who felt it necessary to keep the conversation going, wandered on. “But perhaps they are. After all, these war marriages must lead to a good many divorces, though we don’t read about them as much as we used to. But I dare say they go on just the same and you have plenty to do.” Dane-Latimer grinned. He beckoned to the waitress and ordered two more brandies. Gorman talked on. One after another the men in the smoking-room got up and went away. At three o’clock there was no one left within earshot of Gorman and Dane-Latimer. A couple of Heads of Government Departments and a Staff Officer still sat on at the far end of the room, but they were busy with a conversation of their own about a new kind of self-starter for motor cars. Dane-Latimer began to talk at last. “The fact is,” he said, “I shouldn’t have been here to-day--I certainly shouldn’t be sitting smoking at this hour if I hadn’t wanted to talk to you.” Gorman chuckled pleasantly. He felt that something interesting was coming. “I’ve rather a queer case on hand,” said Dane-Latimer, “and some friends of yours are mixed up in it, at least I think I’m right in saying that that picturesque blackguard Konrad Karl of Megalia is a friend of yours.” “I hope he’s not the co-respondent,” said Gorman. “No. No. It’s nothing of that sort. In fact, strictly speaking, he’s not in it at all. No legal liability. The action threatened is against Madame Ypsilante.” “Don’t say shop lifting,” said Gorman. “I’ve always been afraid she’s take to that sooner or later. Not that she’s a dishonest woman. Don’t think that. It’s simply that she can’t understand, is constitutionally incapable of seeing any reason why she shouldn’t have anything she wants.” “You may make your mind easy,” said Dane-Latimer. “It’s not shop-lifting. In fact it isn’t anything that would be called really disgraceful.” “That surprises me. I should hardly have thought Madame could have avoided--but go on. “You know Scarsby?” said Dane-Latimer.