They hailed another cab, and again Neil, leaving his lurking-place, drove after them. He saw David and Jenny go into the mansions, then stood uncertain whether to hurry home and tell the position of affairs to Van Hupfeldt, who, he knew, must by this time be raving, or whether to wait and see if Jenny and David came out again. He was loitering a little way up the house-stairs, thinking it out, when he heard the lift coming down, and presently he saw David rush out--alone. Jenny, then, was still in the building. Neil ran to the lift-man. "Gentleman who just come down," he said, "does he live here?" "He do, in No. 7," was the answer. "Girl's left in his flat, then," thought Neil, scratching his head, "and the bloke wot owns the flat don't know I've been spying. I'd better hurry back and let the master know how things are looking." Whereat the valet, who was clearer in action than in speech, ran out and took cab to Hanover Square, to tell Van Hupfeldt where Jenny was. CHAPTER XI SWORDS DRAWN David, meantime, also by cab, was off to Porchester Gardens, a certain hurry and fluster now in his usually self-possessed bosom. He looked at his face in the cab-mirror, and adjusted his tie. A young man who acts in that way betrays a symptom of heart-disease. At 60A he sent up his card. Violet knew from Dibbin the name of David Harcourt, but when she read it she seemed startled, and turned a little pale. "Show him up," she said, in a flurry. "You will excuse my calling," explained David, without shaking hands, "though we have met before--you remember?" She inclined her head a little, standing, as it were, shrunk from him, some way off. "But my visit has to do with a small matter which admits of no delay." "My mother--" she began. "Is out, I know," said he, "but as the affair is urgent, I am here. You know that I am the tenant of No. 7, Eddystone Mansions, and you know also, that, without seeking it, I have some knowledge of your history. I wish to ask whether, without troubling your mind with a lot of details, you care to authorize me to spend at once, in your interests, a sum of one hundred pounds." She scrutinized him with a certain furtiveness, weighing him. "In my interests?" said she. "Yours and your mother's." "One hundred pounds?" "Yes." "It seems a strange request." "It isn't a request. If you haven't confidence in me to the extent of one hundred pounds, I am not deeply concerned." "But you come like a storm, and speak like one." "On a purely business matter of your own--remember." "You were at the pains to come," she said with a smile. "You cannot both care and not care." "I used the word 'concern,' you know." "Is it a gracious way to approach me?" "Is it charming to be mistrusted?" "Did I say that I mistrusted you?" "With your eyes." "Well, I say now with my lips that I do not. Which will you believe?" "No doubt they can both deceive." "Oh, now you are verging on rudeness."