Saul Hartz was too much a man of the world to betray his private feelings. But with an air more rapt than that of any fakir, soothsayer or mystic, Wygram calmly awaited the declaration of his errand. But why declare it? A sudden doubt now stiffened the will of the Colossus. Such a window-dressing fellow was a European or most likely an American, the astutest kind of westerner who knew how to wear his tongue in his cheek. Why, therefore, disclose such an exceedingly intimate matter to one whom instinctively he did not trust; one who, moreover, might know how, should occasion call, to turn such very perilous knowledge against him. It was not to be wondered at that the ensuing silence was not immediately broken. To Saul Hartz it was peculiarly trying. He was a man who had a right to plume himself upon the faculty of knowing his own mind. His fortunes had been built upon it. But now, at this difficult moment, for almost the first time in his life it deserted him. Should he confide in this charlatan or should he not? In the end it was the man on the ground who opened the ball. He removed the tube from his lips and said with a curious absence of gesture, almost in the manner of one who communes with the unseen, “I appreciate your difficulty, Mr. Hartz. But in these little matters, things are not always as they appear.” This speech, delicately suave though it was, yet stung the visitor to words of his own. “What little matters?” he asked, with a sense of irritation that he knew to be illogical. “When busy men seek me out,” was the answer, “they desire guidance, as a rule, in things beyond their ken ... things which have suddenly, unexpectedly, even terribly obtruded themselves upon their daily lives.” Curtly, Saul Hartz agreed. This cunning quack was fishing for a clue to the business which had brought him there. “You are under no obligation to take me into your confidence.” The voice was charming. “There was no compulsion for you to come here at all. And now you are here, you deplore your boldness. The dilemma is quite intelligible. One even sympathizes with it. But there is a short way out, if you will but consent to take it.” “Very glad, if you’ll find one for me,” said Hartz, in a voice that was half a growl. “Nothing simpler. Smoke one of my cigarettes and I guarantee that your path shall grow magically clearer.” Saul Hartz scowled a little. Even when the man on the floor made a long arm and took a box of wonderful Indian inlay work from a tiny table near his elbow and offered it with a smile of rare courtesy, the dubiousness of the visitor was without disguise. “No pressure,” Wygram held out the box with an air of delicious irony. “Quite a free agent, my dear sir.”