Louison, I now debit you just thirty pounds!" laughed Major Alan
Hawke, as he deftly blew a kiss in the direction of Allahabad. "You
shall pay for this bracelet, and much more! You shall pay for all!
And I'll set this soft-hearted Swiss woman on to watch you, and you
shall pay her well, too! Now, for my old friend, Hugh Johnstone!"
He waited in a most happy frame of mind till his carriage bore him
to the club for an elaborate Anglo-Indian toilet.

There was a crowd of eager gossips secretly tracking him who watched
him roll away in state to the marble house.

"By Jove! I believe that he is the coming man!" said old Captain
Verner. "I wonder if this handsome young beggar is really going in
for the Veiled Rose of Delhi. Just his damned luck!" And then the
loungers left the club window and drank deeply confusion to the
would-be wooer's stratagems.

All unconscious of their busy curiosity, the gallant Major Alan
Hawke calmly descended at the marble house, with a secret oath now
registered to ignore the very existence of Nadine Johnstone, "The
old man is always harping on his daughter," he mused. "I must throw
this old beggar off his guard thoroughly to-day, once and for all.
He must never think that I, too, am 'harping on his daughter.'

"But only let me get to the core of this old secret of the jewels,
and I will find a way to frighten the baronet-to-be until he opens his
miserly old heart." And so the wary guest sought his old friend's
presence. When Major Alan Hawke's neat trap drew up before the
marble house there was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in
waiting to welcome the expected guest.