"It has gone farther than you think," said M. Mirabeau shrewdly. "And that is why you were discharged without--" "By gad! The worst of it all is, she will probably get her walking papers too,--if she hasn't already got them," groaned the young man. "Don't you see what has happened? The rotter has kicked up a rumpus about that innocent,--and if I do say it,--gallant act of mine the other night. They've had her on the carpet to explain. It looks bad for her. They're the sort of people you can't explain things to. What rotten luck! She needs the money and--" "Nothing of the kind has happened," said M. Mirabeau with conviction. "It isn't in young Mr. S.-P.'s plans to have her dismissed. That would be--ah, what is it you say?--spilling the beans, eh? The instant she relinquishes her place in that household all hope is lost, so far as he is concerned. He is shrewd enough to realize that, my friend. You are the fly in his ointment. It is necessary to the success of his enterprise to be well rid of you. He doesn't want to lose sight of her, however. He--" "Run me out of town, eh?" grated Trotter, his thoughts leaping back to the passage in Lady Jane's letter. "Easier said than done, he'll find." Mr. Bramble coughed. "Are we not going it rather blindly? All this is pure speculation. The young man may not have a hand in the business at all." "He'll discover he's put his foot in it if he tries any game on me," said Mr. Trotter. M. Mirabeau beamed. "There is always a way to checkmate the villain in the story. You see it exemplified in every melodrama on the stage and in every shilling shocker. The hero,--and you are our hero,--puts him to rout by marrying the heroine and living happily to a hale old age. What could be more beautiful than the marriage of Lady Jane Thorne and Lord Eric Carruthers Ethelbert Temple? Mon dieu! It is--" "Rubbish!" exclaimed Mr. Trotter, suddenly looking down at his foot, which was employed in the laudable but unnecessary act of removing a tiny shaving from a crack in the floor. "Besides," he went on an instant later, acknowledging an interval of mental consideration, "she wouldn't have me." "It is my time to say 'rubbish,'" said the old Frenchman. "Why wouldn't she have you?" "Because she doesn't care for me in that way, if you must know," blurted out the young man. "Has she said so?" "Of course not. She wouldn't be likely to volunteer the information, would she?" with fine irony. "Then how do you know she doesn't care for you in that way?" "Well, I--I just simply know it, that's all." "I see. You are the smartest man of all time if you know a woman's heart without probing into it, or her mind without tricking it. She permitted you to carry her up the steps, didn't she?" "She had to," said Trotter forcibly. "That doesn't prove anything. And what's more, she objected to being carried." "Um! What did she say?"