He gazed after that officious young man with a steely eye. The second post had arrived a short time before, and it had included among a number of bills and circulars a letter from his lawyer, in which the latter regretfully gave it as his opinion that an action against Mr. Lester Carmody in the matter of that dynamite business would not lie. To bring such an action would, in the judgment of Colonel Wyvern's lawyer, be a waste both of time and money. The communication was not calculated to sweeten the Colonel's temper, nor did the spectacle of his daughter in apparently pleasant conversation with one of the enemy help to cheer him up. "What are you talking about to that fellow?" he demanded. It was rare for Colonel Wyvern to be the heavy father, but there are times when heaviness in a father is excusable. "Where did you meet him?" His tone disagreeably affected Pat's already harrowed nerves, but she replied to the question equably. "I met him on the bridge. We were talking about John." "Well, kindly understand that I don't want you to hold any communication whatsoever with that young man or his cousin John or his infernal uncle or any of that Hall gang. Is that clear?" Her father was looking at her as if she were a snail which he had just found eating one of his lettuce leaves, but Pat still contrived with some difficulty to preserve a pale, saintlike calm. "Quite clear." "Very well, then." There was a silence. "I've known Johnnie fourteen years," said Pat in a small voice. "Quite long enough," grunted Colonel Wyvern. Pat walked on into the house and up the stairs to her room. There, having stamped on the basket and reduced it to a state where it would never again carry seed cake to ex-cooks, she sat on her bed and stared, dry-eyed, at her reflection in the mirror. What with Dolly Molloy and Hugo and her father, the whole aspect of John Carroll seemed to be changing for her. No longer was she able to think of him as Poor Old Johnnie. He had the glamour now of something unattainable and greatly to be desired. She looked back at a night, some centuries ago, when a fool of a girl had refused the offer of this superman's love, and shuddered to think what a mess of things girls can make. And she had no one to confide in. The only person who could have understood and sympathized with her was Hugo's glass-eyed money lender. He knew what it was to change one's outlook. II Mr. Alexander (Chimp) Twist stood with his shoulders against the mantelpiece in Mr. Carmody's study and, twirling his waxed moustache thoughtfully, listened with an expressionless face to Soapy Molloy's synopsis of the events which had led up to his being at the Hall that morning. Dolly reclined in a deep armchair. Mr. Carmody was not present, having stated that he would prefer to leave the negotiations entirely to Mr. Molloy.