"There isn't much honour about an arrangement of this sort, is there?"
she said. "It has to be on paper, or not at all."

A carriage stopped outside. They heard the bell.

"That," she remarked, "may be the Duchess of Lenchester."

He caught up the pen and wrote a few hurried lines. The smile with which
he handed it to her was not altogether successful.

"After all, you know," he said, "there should be honour amongst thieves."

"No doubt there is," she answered. "Only thieves are a cut above us,
aren't they?"

"I don't believe," Borrowdean said to himself, as he reached the
pavement, "that that woman is such a fool as she seems."




CHAPTER II

"CHERCHEZ LA FEMME"


Mannering hated dinner parties, but this one had been a necessity.
Nevertheless, if he had known who his companion for the evening was fated
to be he would most certainly have stayed away. Her first question showed