"Well?" It was a singularly agreeable voice which aroused him, soft and well-bred, but with a faint foreign accent. The speaker was his employer, a slender dark man, with a finely carved face, immobile as the Sphinx. He had laid aside his Inverness and top hat, and showed himself in evening dress with a large--perhaps a thought too large--buttonhole of Parma violets, which sent forth a faint fragrance. Of the personality of the man the messenger knew nothing more than that he was foreign, eccentric in a quiet way, lived in a grand house near Portland Place, and rewarded him handsomely for his occasional services. That the grand house was an hotel at which Poltavo had run up an uncomfortable bill he could not know. The boy related his adventures of the evening, not omitting to mention his late pursuer. The man listened quietly, brooding, his elbows upon the table, his inscrutable face propped in the crotch of his hand. A ruby, set quaintly in a cobra's head, gleamed from a ring upon his little finger. Presently he roused. "That's all to-night, my boy," he said, gravely. He drew out his purse, extracted a sovereign, and laid it in the messenger's hand. "And this," he said, softly, holding up a second gold piece, "is for--discretion! You comprehend?" The boy shot a swift glance, not unmixed with terror, at the still, recumbent figure in the corner, mumbled an assent and withdrew. Out in the dampness of the fog, he took a long, deep breath. As the door closed behind him, the door of an inner room opened and Farrington came out. He had preceded the messenger by five minutes. The young exquisite leaned back in his chair, and smiled into the sombre eyes of his companion. "At last!" he breathed, softly. "The thing moves. The wheels are beginning to revolve!" The other nodded gloomily, his glance straying off toward the corner of the room. "They've got to revolve a mighty lot more before the night's done!" he replied, with heavy significance. "I needn't tell you," he continued, "that we must move in this venture with extreme caution. A single misstep at the outset, the slightest breath of suspicion, and pff! the entire superstructure falls to the ground." "That is doubtless true, Mr. Farrington," murmured his companion, pleasantly. He leaned down to inhale the fragrant scent of the violets. "But you forget one little thing. This grand superstructure you speak of--so mysteriously"--he hid a slight smile--"I don't know it--all. You have seen fit, in your extreme caution, to withhold complete information from me." He paused, and regarded his companion with a level, steady gaze. A faint, ironical smile played about the corners of his mouth; he spoke with a slightly foreign accent, which was at once pleasant and piquant. "Is it not so, my friend?" he asked, softly. "I am--how you say--left out in the cold--I do not even know your immediate plans."