'Thanks, Deb, old girl,' said he, as he pocketed a cheque of hers for fifty pounds, and thought gloomily over the two thousand that would in time become inexorably due and must be paid, or see him stigmatized as a _welsher_! 'Little does the outer world know of all I have to put up with from you, Hawkey,' said she, with a sigh, as she locked away her cheque-book, and he surveyed her with a cool and discriminating stare through his eyeglass--the use of which be affected in imitation of others--screwed into his right eye. 'It is too bad of you to talk to me in that way, Deb,' said he, 'when I have cut out and relieved you of the presence of that impudent beggar, Lindsay. Miss Drummond, as an only daughter, must, I suppose, be the heiress to something or other.' 'I thought she would never look with favour on you--but treat you as Maude did,' said Mrs. Lindsay, slowly fanning herself with a large black lace fan. Hawkey laughed maliciously; then he suddenly set his teeth together and exclaimed: 'Maude! I'll pay _her_ out yet--she and I have not squared our accounts--I shall be even with her before long. As for little Annot not looking at me--by Jove, she has looked and said all I could have wished. She is not so "stand-off" and unapproachable as you may think all her set to be, when a fellow knows the way to go about it--as I rather flatter myself I do,' he added, caressing his straw-coloured and tenderly-fostered moustache, and pulling up his shirt-collar. 'But where have you and she met, since you ceased to occupy your rooms here?' 'Oh--with the hounds--in the park--wherever I wished, in fact. You and she, Deb, will get on excellently together, if we all play our cards well now--I marry one of the family, don't you see? Then, I haven't a doubt that Annot has money.' 'Did she give you reason to suppose she has?' 'N--no--not exactly--well?' 'She will succeed to whatever her mother may have--little, probably.' 'Will have, or _may_ have--shady that! Well, unlike most heiresses, she's a deuced pretty little girl, Deb, and suits my book exactly. So, with your assistance, we shall be all right.' 'My assistance?' 'Of course.' 'Bright, soft, and girlish as she seems, I suspect there is not a more artful damsel in London,' said Mrs. Lindsay shrewdly. 'Oh bosh, Deb! Well, if it be so, two can do the artful game; but does not your own knowledge of human nature lead you to see,' he added sententiously, 'that art and prudence too give place when love comes on the scene?' 'Love--yes--are you quoting a play? Will this fancy of hers last--if fancy it is?' 'Why not?' 'You are not a gentleman in her sense of the word.' 'You are deuced unpleasant, Deb!' said he, contemplating his spiky nails. 'And her sudden quarrel with Roland Lindsay--if quarrel it was--I do not understand.' 'I do. He is a poor beggar--dropped out of the hunt--and I--I am----' 'What?'