"The consideration of that point," Crawshay continued, resuming his usual manner, "although it lies off the track of my present investigation, presents some points of interest. She can be of no further use to him in his present scheme. She certainly would not aid him in the concealment of any of his spoils, nor could she become an intermediary in forwarding them to their destination. Yet he has sent her roses every day she has been in England, and dined with her two nights following. You, who know him better than I do, will agree that such a course is unusual with him." "But Dick Beverley is with them to-night, you told me," she reminded him. "That scarcely alters the situation," Crawshay pointed out, "because his coming was quite unexpected. If anything, it rather strengthens my point of view. Beverley is very much a young man of the world, and he probably knows Jocelyn Thew's reputation. He certainly would not consent to meet him in this friendly fashion, in company with his sister, unless the latter insisted." "She doesn't need to insist," Nora said, watching the champagne poured into her glass. "Unless you're kidding me, you don't seem to be able to see much further than your nose. Katharine Beverley didn't come across the Atlantic for her health, and Dick Beverley didn't join that little dinner party for nothing to-night. They both of them did as they were told, and they had to do it." "This, I must confess," Crawshay murmured, smoothly and mendaciously, "puzzles me. Your idea is, then, that Jocelyn Thew has some hold over them?" She laughed at him a little contemptuously. "You are not going to make me believe," she said, "that you are not wise about that. It isn't clever, you know, to treat me as a simpleton." "I am afraid," he confessed humbly, "that it is I who am the simpleton. You think, then, that the red roses are more emblematic of warfare than of love?" Nora shrugged her shoulders and was silent for several moments. Her companion changed the subject abruptly, pointed out to her several theatrical celebrities, told her an entertaining story, and talked nonsense until the smile came back to her lips. It was Nora herself who returned to the subject of the Beverleys, reopening it with a certain abruptness which showed that it had never been far from her thoughts. "See here, Mr. Crawshay," she said, "you seem to me to be wasting a lot of time worrying round a subject, when I don't know whether a straightforward question wouldn't clear it up for you. If you want to know what there is between those three, Jocelyn Thew and the two Beverleys, I don't know that I mind telling you. It's probably what you asked me to dine with you for, anyway." "My dear Miss Sharey!" Crawshay protested, with genuine earnestness. "I can assure you that I had only one object in asking you to spend the evening with me." She smiled at him over the glass which she had just raised to her lips. "And that?"