word quivered in his ears with a suppressed emotion. Was it thankfulness
for her escape? he wondered, or was it anger at the part that he had
played?




PART II

ILLUSION




CHAPTER I

OF PLEASURE AS THE CHIEF END OF MAN


On the morning after his meeting with Adams, Arnold Kemper awoke at
three minutes of nine o'clock, and lay for exactly the three minutes
that were needed to make up the hour watching the hand as it moved on
the face of the bronze clock upon his mantel. The clock, like everything
in his rooms, was costly, a little ornate, and suggestive of an owner
whose intention aimed frankly at the original.

Lying in his large mahogany bedstead, with his body outstretched between
soft yet crisply ironed linen sheets, and his head placed exactly in the
centre of the pillows, he waited, yawning, until the expected hour
should strike. If by an effort of will he could have put back the minute