“This is too great a temptation for Pequita, my friend,” she said quietly, but firmly. “In duty bound, she would have to sell it in order to help her poor father. She could not justly keep it. Let me be the arbiter in this matter. If you can carry out your suggestion, and obtain for her an engagement at the Royal Opera, then give it to her, but not till then! Do you not think I am right?” She spoke so sweetly and persuasively, that Leroy was profoundly touched. What he would have liked would have been to give the child a roll of gold pieces,--but he was playing a strange part, and the time to act openly was not yet. “It shall be as you wish, Madame!” he said with courteous deference. “Pequita, the first time you dance before the King, this shall be yours!” He put aside the jewel, and Pequita kissed his hand impulsively,--as impulsively she kissed the lips of her friend Lotys--and then came the general dispersal and break-up of the assembly. “Tell me;” said Sergius Thord, catching Leroy’s hand in a close and friendly grasp ere bidding him farewell; “Are you in very truth in personal danger on account of serving our Cause?” “No!” replied Leroy frankly, returning the warm pressure; “And rest assured that if I were, I would find means to elude it! I have managed to frighten Carl Pérousse, that is all--and Jost!” “Jost!” echoed Sergius; “The Colossus of the Press? Surely it would take more than one man to frighten him!” Leroy laughed. “I grant you the Jewish centres of journalism are difficult to shake! But they all depend on stocks and shares!” A touch on his arm caused him to turn round,--Paul Zouche confronted both him and Thord, with a solemn worn face, and lack-lustre eyes. “Good-night, friends!” he said; “I have not kicked at a king with my boot, but I have with my brain!--and the effort is exhausting! I am going home to bed.” “Where is your home?” asked Leroy suddenly. Zouche looked mysterious. “In a palace, dear sir! A palace of golden air, peopled with winged dreams! No money could purchase it;--no ‘Empire Builder’ could build it!--it is mine and mine alone! And I pay no taxes!” “Will you put this to some use for me?” said Leroy, holding out a gold piece; “Simply as comrade and friend?” Zouche stared at him. “You mean it?” “Of course I mean it! Zouche, believe me, you are going to be the fashion! You will be able to do _me_ a good turn before long!” Zouche took the gold piece, and as he took it, pressed the giver’s hand.