“I am going down here,” Sir Timothy announced. “I shall be gone perhaps an hour. The neighbourhood is not a fit one for you to be left alone in. I shall have time to send you home. The car will be back here for me by the time I require it.” “Where are you going?” she asked curiously. “Why can't I come with you?” “I am going where I cannot take you,” was the firm reply. “I told you that before I started.” “I shall sit here and wait for you,” she decided. “I rather like the neighbourhood. There is a gentleman in shirt-sleeves, leaning over the rail of the roof there, who has his eye on me. I believe I shall be a success here--which is more than I can say of a little further westwards.” Sir Timothy smiled slightly. He had exchanged his hat for a tweed cap, and had put on a long dustcoat. “There is no gauge by which you may know the measure of your success,” he said. “If there were--” “If there were?” she asked, leaning a little forward and looking at him with a touch of the old brilliancy in her eyes. “If there were,” he said, with a little show of mock gallantry, “a very jealously-guarded secret might escape me. I think you will be quite all right here,” he continued. “It is an open thoroughfare, and I see two policemen at the corner. Hassell, my chauffeur, too, is a reliable fellow. We will be back within the hour.” “We?” she repeated. He indicated a man who had silently made his appearance during the conversation and was standing waiting on the sidewalk. “Just a companion. I do not advise you to wait. If you insist--au revoir!” Lady Cynthia leaned back in a corner of the car. Through half-closed eyes she watched the two men on their way down the crowded thoroughfare--Sir Timothy tall, thin as a lath, yet with a certain elegance of bearing; the man at his side shorter, his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat, his manner one of subservience. She wondered languidly as to their errand in this unsavoury neighbourhood. Then she closed her eyes altogether and wondered about many things. Sir Timothy and his companion walked along the crowded, squalid street without speech. Presently they turned to the right and stopped in front of a public-house of some pretensions. “This is the place?” Sir Timothy asked. “Yes, sir!” Both men entered. Sir Timothy made his way to the counter, his companion to a table near, where he took a seat and ordered a drink. Sir Timothy did the same. He was wedged in between a heterogeneous crowd of shabby, depressed but apparently not ill-natured men and women. A man in a flannel shirt and pair of shabby plaid trousers, which owed their precarious position to a pair of worn-out braces, turned a beery eye upon the newcomer. “I'll 'ave one with you, guvnor,” he said. “You shall indeed,” Sir Timothy assented. “Strike me lucky but I've touched first time!” the man exclaimed. “I'll 'ave a double tot of whisky,” he added, addressing the barman. “Will it run to it, guvnor?”