above all blackmail. I know already half the story of this clouded
past. Madame Alixe Delavigne must yield up the other half, bit by
bit. By the time she arrives, my spies will have posted me. I will
have opened rny parallels on the Swiss dragon who guards the lovely
Nadine. Now to make my first play upon the old nabob."

Major Alan Hawke had studied skillfully out his gambit for an attack
upon Hugh Johnstone's vanity. When he descended at the hospitable
doors of his secret ally, Ram Lal Singh, he plunged into the seclusion
of a luxurious easy toilet making. A dozen letters glanced over,
a comforting hookah, and Alan Hawke had easily "sized up" the
situation. For Ram Lal's first skeleton report had clearly proved
to him that the coast was clear. "Thank Heavens there are as yet
no rivals," Hawke murmured. "Neither confidential friend of the old
boy, no dashing Ruy Gomez as yet in the way." Hawke viewed himself
complacently in the mirror. He was severely just to himself, and
he well knew all his own good points. "Pshaw!" he murmured, "any
man not one-eyed can easily play the Prince Charming to a hooded
lady all forlorn, a mere child, a tyro in life's soft battles of
the heart. I must impress this pompous old fool that I know all
the intrigues of his proposed elevation. He will unbosom, and both
trust and fear me. These pampered civilians are as haughty in their
way as the military and be damned to them," mused Hawke, cheerfully
humming his battle song, those words of a vitriolic wit:

"General Sir Arthur Victorious Jones, Great is vermillion splashed
with gold."

"This old crab has quietly stolen himself rich, and now forsooth
would tack on a Sir Hugh before his name. Ah! The jewels! I