A moment's pause ensued. Bersonin's fingers were rigid. There seemed suddenly to Phil to be some significance between his silence and the conversation--as if he wished it to sink into his, Phil's, mind. The voice continued: "What has happened once may happen again. What if one of those Dreadnaughts by whatever accident should go down in this friendly harbor? It doesn't take a vivid imagination to picture the headlines next morning in the newspapers at home!" The ice in the tumblers clinked; there was a sound of pushed-back chairs. As their departing footsteps died in the hall, Bersonin's gaze lifted slowly to Phil's face. It had in it now the look it had held when he gazed from the roof of the bungalow on the Bluff across the anchorage beneath. Phil did not start or shrink. Instead, the slinking evil that ruled him met half-way the bolder evil in that glance, from whose sinister suggestion the veil was for a moment lifted, recognizing a tacit kinship. Neither spoke, but as the hard young eyes looked into the cavernous, topaz eyes of Doctor Bersonin, Phil _knew_ that the thought that lay coiled there was a thing unholy and unafraid. His heart beat faster, but it warmed. He felt no longer awed by the other's greater age, standing and accomplishments. He was conscious of a new, half-insolent sense of easy comradeship. "Suppose," said Bersonin slowly, "I should show you how to find the money." A sharp eagerness darted across Phil's face. Money! How much he needed it, longed for it! It could put him on his feet, clear off his debts, square his bridge-balance, and--his brother notwithstanding!--enable him to begin another chapter of the careless life he loved! He looked steadily into the expert's face. "Tell me!" he almost whispered. Bersonin rose and held out his hand. He did not smile. "Come with me to-night," he said. "I dine late, but we'll take a spin in my car and have some tea somewhere beforehand. Tell me where your house is and I'll send Ishida with the motor-car for you." Phil gave him the address and he went out with no further word. A great, brass-fitted automobile, with a young, keen-eyed Japanese sitting beside the chauffeur, throbbed up from the shed. Bersonin climbed ponderously in. A gray-haired diplomatist, entering the Club with a stranger, pointed the big man out to the other as he was whirled away. CHAPTER XVIII IN THE BAMBOO LANE _What did Bersonin mean?_ Phil replenished his glass, feeling a tense, nervous excitement. Why had he listened so intently--made _him_ listen--to what the men in the next room were saying? He could recall it all--for some reason every word was engraven on his mind. The visit of the foreign Squadron. Speculators who had once made quick fortunes through an accident to a battle-ship. He thought of the look he had seen on Bersonin's face.