contact with them?"

He smiled.

"I am not afraid of business being slack," he said. "The world is
full of fools."

"You cannot live outside the law, Peter," she objected. "You are
clever, I know, but they are not all fools at Scotland Yard."

"You forget," he reminded her, "that there will be a perfectly
legitimate side to my profession. The other sort of case I shall
only accept if I can see my way clear to make a success of it.
Needless to say, I shall have to refuse the majority that are
offered to me."

She came a little nearer to him.

"In any case," she said, with a little sigh, "you have given up that
foolish, bourgeois life of yours?"

He looked down into her face, and his eyes were cold.

"Violet," he said, "this is no time for misunderstandings. I should
like you to know that apart from one young lady, who possesses my
whole affection - "

"All of it?" she pleaded.

"All!" he declared emphatically. "She will doubtless be faithless