The transaction in which Lady John Bevan was to act as catspaw came off next morning as the girl had expected, and she would have given something handsome if she could have seen George Gallon’s face when he found himself obliged to pay, for the very shares he had expected to obtain yesterday, four times what he had intended to offer Mitchison. His profit would now be small, when the great _coup_ came off; still, he could not afford to refuse the chance, and Joan knew it. Some day, she meant that he should also know to whom he owed his defeat; but that day was not yet. For the shares sold by Mitchison he had received two hundred pounds. A like sum Joan agreed to place in Tommy’s hands, as part profit of the transaction; and when Lady John Bevan was paid for the two months’ hire of the _Titania_, the girl would have a hundred pounds over, to "play with," as she expressed it to herself. The other shares which Mitchison was pledged to obtain from Genoa would be available within the next few days, and Joan had made up her mind what to do with them by and by. She had had several inspirations since overhearing snatches of conversation between her employer and his Italian visitor yesterday morning, and one of these inspirations concerned Lady John Bevan. Lady John was pitied by the old friends in the old life from which poverty and misfortune had removed her. People would have been glad to be "nice" to her in any cheap way which did not cost too much money or trouble, if she had let them. But the woman was a proud woman, who still loved her husband in spite of his guilt, and she had not cared to go out of her hired flat in Kensington to be patronised by the world which had once flattered and fought for her invitations. Joan guessed as much of this as she did not know, and when Lady John wished her, rather wistfully, a "pleasant cruise," the girl said suddenly: "Come along and be my chaperon! My aunt Caroline, Uncle Grierson Mordaunt’s sister, came to England with me; but she hates the sea, and flatly refuses to do any yachting. I’m not sorry, because she’s a prim old dear, and what I want is to see a little life and fun. I’ve been kept very close till now, and though I’m of age, I’m only just out, so I don’t know many people, and you would be sure to meet lots of nice friends of yours, to whom you’d introduce me. It’s so foggy and horrid here now; I’m going to make straight for the Riviera with the _Titania_, and it will do you good. Please come." Lady John could not resist the prospect, or that "Please," spoken cooingly, with lovely, pleading eyes and a childlike touch on her arm. Besides, she was fond of the _Titania_, and before she quite knew what she was doing, she had promised to chaperon Grierson Mordaunt’s niece.