"Ah, sir! Paid his bill and left. Luggage already sent to the station
labeled 'Paris.'" Alan Hawke most liberally tipped the functionary.
"I think I will take a run of a few days up to Lausanne or Chillon
myself; the weather is delightful." He strolled over to the local
Cook's Agency and sent his treasure-trove check on to London for
collection.

"I think that I will fight shy of this sleepy burgh," he ruminated,
as the little paddle-wheel steamer sped along toward Ferney, leaving
behind a huge triangular wake carved in the pellucid waters. "It
might be devilish awkward if Anstruther should find me here, hovering
around his fair enslaver. I may need this golden youth again, in
the days to come! He will be out of India for a couple of years,
but I will not trust Fate blindly. What the old Harry can she be
up to?" He suddenly burst into a merry peal of laughter, to the
astonishment of the crowd of passengers.

"Fool that I am! I see it all now! Anstruther cleared out early!
The proprieties of the home of Calvin must be respected! After he
has adroitly pumped the intellectual fountain of the past dry, then
a quiet little breakfast tete et tete will give Madame Louison the
time to fool him to the top of his bent! The sly minx! Evidently
she is cast for the 'ingenue' part in this little social drama! And
her trump card is to hide from me what she extracts from our Lovelace
by the coy use of those deuced fetching brown eyes and--other charms
too numerous to mention! But you shall tell me all yet, Miss Sly
Boots!" And the Major dreamed pleasant day dreams.

Life now seemed so different to the hopeful vaurien, with the
physical and moral backing of the four hundred and odd pounds! "I