“You’ve given up all those--those schemes and things of yours, haven’t you?” she questioned. “Absolutely,” he replied. “My dear, I’m so glad. I never could understand why----” “Listen,” he said. “What was I to do? I was rich. I was bored. I had no great attainments. I was interested in life and in the arts, but not desperately, not vitally. You may, perhaps, say I should have taken up philanthropy. Well, I’m not built that way. I can’t help it, but I’m not a born philanthropist, and the philanthropist without a gift for philanthropy usually does vastly more harm than good. I might have gone into business. Well, I should only have doubled my millions, while boring myself all the time. Yet the instinct which I inherited from my father, the great American instinct to be a little cleverer and smarter than someone else, drove me to action. It was part of my character, and one can’t get away from one’s character. So finally I took to these rather original ‘schemes,’ as you call them. They had the advantage of being exciting and sometimes dangerous, and though they were often profitable, they were not too profitable. In short, they amused me and gave me joy. They also gave me _you_.” Eve smiled again, but without committing herself. “But you have abandoned them now completely?” she said. “Oh, yes,” he answered. “Then what about this Opéra affair to-night?” She sprang the question on him sharply. She did her best to look severe, but the endeavour ended with a laugh. “I meant to tell you,” he said. “But how--how did you know? How did you guess?” “You forget that I am still a journalist,” she replied, “and still on the staff of my paper. I wished to interview Malva to-night for the _Journal_, and I did so. It was she who let out things. She thought I knew all about it; and when she saw that I didn’t she stopped and advised me mysteriously to consult you for details.” “It was the scandal at the gala performance last autumn that gave me an action for making a corner in seats at the very next gala performance that should ever occur at the Paris Opéra,” Cecil began his confession. “I knew that seats could be got direct from more or less minor officials at the Ministry of Fine Arts, and also that a large proportion of the people invited to these performances were prepared to sell their seats. You can’t imagine how venal certain circles are in Paris. It just happened that the details and date of to-night’s performance were announced on the day we arrived here. I could not resist the chance. Now you comprehend sundry strange absences of mine during the week. I went to a reporter on the _Echo de Paris_ whom I knew, and who knows everybody. And we got out a list of the people likely to be invited and likely to be willing to sell their seats. We also opened negotiations at the Ministry.” “How on earth do these ideas occur to you?” asked Eve.