"No," said Colville. "He would not say so. But it is pretty generally suspected that he is in that galley, and pulls an important oar in it, too. What did he offer you?" "Fifty thousand pounds." "Whew!" whistled Colville. He stopped short in the middle of the road. "Whew!" he repeated, thoughtfully, "fifty thousand pounds! Gad! They must be afraid of you. They must think that we are in a strong position. And what did you say, Barebone?" "I refused." "Why?" Barebone paused, and after a moment's thought made no answer at all. He could not explain to Dormer Colville his reason for refusing. "Outright?" inquired Colville, deep in thought. "Yes." Colville turned and glanced at him sideways, though it was too dark to see his face. "I should have thought," he said, tentatively, after a while, "that it would have been wise to accept. A bird in the hand, you know--a damned big bird! And then afterwards you could see what turned up." "You mean I could break my word later on," inquired Barebone, with that odd downrightness which at times surprised Colville and made him think of Captain Clubbe. "Well, you know," he explained, with a tolerant laugh, "in politics it often turns out that a man's duty is to break his word--duty toward his party, and his country, and that sort of thing." Which was plausible enough, as many eminent politicians seem to have found in these later times. "I dare say it may be so," answered Barebone, "but I refused outright, and there is an end to it." For now that he was brought face to face with the situation, shorn of side issues and set squarely before him, he envisaged it clearly enough. He did not want fifty thousand pounds. He had only wanted the money for a moment because the thought leapt into his mind that fifty thousand pounds meant Miriam. Then he saw that little contemptuous smile tilting the corner of her lips, and he had no use for a million. If he could not have Miriam, he would be King of France. It is thus that history is made, for those who make it are only men. And Clio, that greatest of the daughters of Zeus, about whose feet cluster all the famous names of the makers of this world's story, has, after all, only had the reversion of the earth's great men. She has taken them after some forgotten woman of their own choosing has had the first refusal. Thus it came about that the friendship so nearly severed one evening at the Hotel Gemosac, in Paris, was renewed after a few months; and Barebone felt assured once more that no one was so well disposed toward him as Dormer Colville. There was no formal reconciliation, and neither deemed it necessary to refer to the past. Colville, it will be remembered, was an adept at that graceful tactfulness which is somewhat clumsily described by this tolerant generation as going on as if nothing had happened.