THRESK INTERVENES


Thresk reached his hotel with some words ringing in his head which Jane
Repton had spoken to him at Mrs. Carruthers' dinner-party:

"You can get any single thing in life you want if you want it enough, but
you cannot control the price you will have to pay for it. That you will
only learn afterwards and gradually."

He had got what he had wanted--the career of distinction, and he wondered
whether he was to begin now to learn its price.

He mounted to his sitting-room on the second floor, avoiding the lounge
and the lift and using a small side staircase instead of the great
central one. He had passed no one on the way. In his room he looked upon
the mantelshelf and on the table. No visitor had called on him that day;
no letter awaited him. For the first time since he had landed in India a
day had passed without some resident leaving on him a card or a note of
invitation. The newspapers gave him the reason. He was supposed to have
left on the _Madras_ for England. To make sure he rang for his waiter; no
message of any kind had come.

"Shall I ask at the office?" the waiter asked.

"By no means," answered Thresk, and he added: "I will have dinner served
up here to-night."

There was just a possibility, he thought, that he might after all escape