“That is an expensive song,” she said, before she realized an error of taste. This time he was visibly disconcerted. “Yes; I--er, I borrowed the money,” he said. She had a feeling that he was going to ask her a favour, and guessed what the favour would be: Leslie had the uncanny gift of reading people’s minds and gathering their surface thoughts, and in those moments when Fabrian Gilder dropped his mask he was rather easy. He opened his lips to speak, thought better of it, meeting, perhaps, the chill atmosphere of a refusal before it was given, and then: “I’ll see if your brother is disengaged,” he said, and went into the room to Arthur Gwyn, his head reeling with the vision which had emerged through the gray fog of his drab life. Day after day he had watched her, and she had never known. He had left his rod and line to steal behind trees that he might see her pass. She was romance in excelsis--the perfect realization of thirty years of dreaming. It took him a second to compose himself before he turned the handle and walked in, and then he stood stricken dumb by the words that came to him. XI “My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder, show Miss Wenner out through the side door.” Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the corridor. “Where are you living?” he asked. There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment the girl was taken off her guard. “57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that indicated resentment but invited a further offence. “Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your flat some evening?” Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it. “Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.” Gilder’s hard lips curled. “Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.” He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm. * * *