"My proud lady, keep your pride a little longer," he said to himself. And as he bowed to Stephen Archdale with a dignity as great as Stephen's own, he was thinking: "My morning in that hot office has not been in vain. I know your weak point now, my lofty fellow, and it is there that I will undermine you. You detest business, indeed! John Archdale feels that with his only son in England studying for the ministry he needs a son-in-law in partnership with him. The thousands which I have been putting into his business this morning are well spent, they make me welcome here. Yes, your uncle needs me, Stephen Archdale, for your clever papa is not always brotherly in his treatment, he has more than once brought heavy losses upon the younger firm. It's a part of my pleasure in prospect that now I shall be able to checkmate him in such schemes, perhaps to bring back a little of the loss upon the shoulders of his heir. Ah, I am safer from you than you dream." He turned to Waldo, and as the two men bowed, they looked at one another steadily. Each was remembering their conversation the night before over some Bordeaux in Waldo's room, for they were staying at the same inn and often spent an hour together. They had drunk sparingly, but, just returned from their sail, each was filled with Katie Archdale's beauty, and each had spoken out his purpose plainly, Waldo with an assurance that, if it savored a little of conceit, was full of manliness, the other with a half-smothered fierceness of passion that argued danger to every obstacle in its way. "You've come at the very right moment, Master Harwin," broke in Katie's unconscious voice, and she smiled graciously, as she had a habit of doing at everybody; "We were talking about you not two minutes ago." "Then I am just in time to save my character." "Don't be too sure about that," returned Miss Royal. Waldo laughed, and Katie exchanged glances with him, and smiled mischievously. "No, don't be too sure; it will depend upon whether you say 'yes,' or 'no,' to my question. We were wondering something about you." Harwin's heart sank, though he returned her smile and her glance with interest. For there were questions she might ask which would inconvenience him, but they should not embarrass him. "We were wondering," pursued Katie, "if you had ever been presented. Have you?" As the sun breaks out from a heavy cloud, the light returned to Harwin's blue eyes. "Yes," he said, "four years ago. I went to court with my uncle, Sir Rydal Harwin, and his majesty was gracious enough to nod in answer to my profound reverence." "It was a very brilliant scene, I am sure, and very interesting." "Deeply interesting," returned Harwin with all the traditional respect of an Englishman for his sovereign. Archdale's lip curled a trifle at what seemed to him obsequiousness, but Harwin was not looking at him.