I've found him out--he's all talk. But do as you
will--get your taxi and I'll walk on--we'll have tea in my new flat." Kelson was so delighted he hardly knew if he stood on his head or his
heels. "You are prettier than ever," he said, as the taxi-door shut
and they sped away. "I declare there seems no limit to your beauty." "Only because you're partial," she said. "I shall grow ugly one day. Perhaps--soon." With a savage energy, she set to work to completely
overcome him. With a languishing expression in her eyes--eyes, which
she made use of mercilessly, without giving him a moment's
respite--she watched his whole being vibrate with love and adoration. They had hardly entered the drawing-room of her flat when he threw
himself at her feet, and poured forth his worship of her in the most
extravagant phrases. "Look here, Mr. Kelson," she said at length, withdrawing the hand it
seemed as if he would never leave off kissing, "this is all very well;
but I daresay you make love to countless other girls in this same
fashion. How can I tell if you are really serious?" "Don't I look as if I am?" he cried. "One can never judge correctly by looks," she replied; "they are
terribly deceptive. You are very emphatic in your avowals of love, but
you say nothing about marriage." "Then you do care for me! Jerusalem! How happy I should be if only I
thought that!" "Think it, then," Lilian Rosenberg said, "and let us come to an
understanding. Can you afford to keep a wife--keep her, as I should
expect to be kept--plenty of new dresses, jewelry, theatres, balls,
motors, Ascot, Henley, Cowes?" "I reckon I could do all that," Kelson replied. "I've just over a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the bank, and with this 'cure'
business, I'm taking on an average ten thousand per week. I would
settle a hundred thousand on you, and make you a handsome allowance--a
thousand a week--more if you wanted it." "Well!" Lilian Rosenberg said after a slight pause, during which
Kelson had again seized her hand and was kissing it convulsively, "to
quote one of your Americanisms--I reckon I'll fix up with you. On one
condition, however." "And that," Kelson murmured, still kissing her feverishly. "That we marry a week to-day!" Kelson dropped her hand as if he had been shot. "We can't!" he cried. "The Compact!" "Oh, damn the Compact!" Lilian Rosenberg said coolly. "You marry me
then--or not at all!" "You are joking--you know what the Compact means!" "I know what you think it means. For my own part I don't see that you
have the slightest reason to fear. The Unknown cannot really harm you. All you have to do is to turn religious. Anyhow you must risk it--that
is to say, if you want me." "It will lead to a quarrel with Hamar," Kelson said desperately. "The
Firm will dissolve--and I shan't get a cent more money." "I'll be content with what you have in the bank now. We can live on
the interest of fifty thousand. The hundred thousand you will, of
course, settle on me at once." He was silent. She taunted him, she ridiculed him; she at last lost
her temper with him--whereupon he succumbed. The marriage should take
place at a registry office within the week. "There'll be no time for a trousseau!" he said. "Oh, hang the trousseau!" she said. "I shall have the hundred thousand
pounds. And now for a word of advice. Be sure that you do not let
Hamar get any inkling of our approaching marriage, and be most careful
to avoid doing anything that might arouse his suspicions. It isn't
that I'm afraid of him--but I don't want rows--I'm sick to death of
them!" "You can rely on me to be careful, darling!" Kelson said, kissing her
on the lips. "I'll be discretion itself," and so he meant to be. All
the same--as is the case with every lover--every lover worthy of the
name of lover--who loves with all the full, ripe vigour of genuine
passion, his heart played havoc with his head; and he was blind to
everything save visions of his beloved. In other circumstances this
would not have mattered very much, but with Hamar's lynx eyes
continually watching him, it was certain to lead to disaster. "Ed!" Hamar said to Curtis one day. "Matt's been getting into
mischief. I know the symptoms well. He can't look me in the face, and
every now and then, when he fancies my attention is attracted
elsewhere, I catch him peeping furtively at me as if he were
frightened out of his life I should ferret out some secret. It would
be deplorable if now that we have got so near the end of the Compact,
we should be held up by some idiotic blunder--some nonsensical love
affair of his. I wonder whether it's Rosenberg or some other girl. Will you find out?" "How can I?" Curtis growled. "I'm not his keeper." "I know that!" Hamar said. "Come be reasonable. You want to be a
Croesus--so that you can eat and drink your head off--don't you! Well! You will! You will be one of the three wealthiest men in the
world--you will have the world at your feet, if only you stick to me
for the next seven months: till we have passed the seventh stage. If
you don't--if either you or Matt deliberately quarrel with me, or
marry--then, as I've dinned into your ears a thousand times, the
Compact will be broken, and--not only that, but some frightful
catastrophe will wipe us off. Now will you do what I ask? Come--a
dinner with me every night this week, at the Piccadilly--champagne--and
no vegetables!" "All right," Curtis said sulkily, "for the good of the cause I suppose
I must, but I hate spying." Two nights later in a private room at the Piccadilly, after dinner,
when the champagne and liqueurs had got into Curtis's head and he was
leaning back in his chair, smiling and silly, Hamar suddenly said,
"Ed! you remember what I told you--about watching Kelson. Have you
discovered anything?" "Shupposing I have," Curtis replied, "shupposing I haven't--whatch
then?" "Ah, but I know you have," Hamar said, striving to hide his eagerness. "Come, tell me, another liqueur--I'll square it with the Unknown--it
won't hurt you!" "Won't it!" Curtis gurgled. "Wont'ch it! I'll tell you everything. No--nothingsh, I mean." But Hamar when once he had smelt a rat, was not easily put off. He
coaxed, and coaxed, and eventually succeeded. "Leonsh!" Curtis said, with a sudden burst of drunken confidence. "Leonsh! it's worse than either you or I shuspected. I caught them
alone this morning--in my offish." "Them! Rosenberg and Matt!" "Yesh, of course, shilly! I told Matt I was going out. He thought I
had--so into the room I came--quite unshuspected, unobsherved. She was
sitting on hish knees, cuddling--and he was putting a ring on her
finger. 'Four more days, darling,' shays he, 'and we are married! Jerushalem! Damn the Compact and damnsh Hamar!' 'Hamar doesn't
shuspect, does he?' Rosenberg shays. 'Not a bit--not in the
slightest,' old Matt replieshes, 'why it is I who amsh brave now.' Then he kisshes her, and fearing they would detect my presence, I
slipsh quietly out." "Will you swear this is true?"