‘If you said it for me,’ suggested Mr. Van Torp gravely, ’it would be more likely to work.’

’Oh no!  That wouldn’t do at all!  You must say it for yourself.  I’ll teach it to you if you like.  Shall I?’

‘What must I say?’ asked the financier.

’Well, it’s made up for me, you see, and besides, I’ve shortened it a wee bit.  What I say is:  “Dear God, please forgive me this time, and make me never want to do it again.  Amen.”  Can you remember that, do you think?’

‘I think I could,’ said Mr. Van Torp.  ’Please forgive me and make me never do it again.’

‘Never want to do it again,’ corrected little Ida with emphasis.  ’You must try not even to want to say dreadful things.  And then you must say “Amen.”  That’s important.’

‘Amen,’ repeated the millionaire.

At this juncture the discordant toot of an approaching motor-car was heard above the singing of the birds.  Mr. Van Torp turned his head quickly in the direction of the sound, and at the same time instinctively led the little girl towards one side of the road.  She apparently understood, for she asked no questions.  There was a turn in the drive a couple of hundred yards away, where the Elm Walk ended, and an instant later an enormous white motor-car whizzed into sight, rushed furiously towards the two, and was brought to a standstill in an uncommonly short time, close beside them.  An active man, in the usual driver’s disguise of the modern motorist, jumped down, and at the same instant pushed his goggles up over the visor of his cap and loosened the collar of his wide coat, displaying the face of Constantino Logotheti.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Mr. Van Torp asked the wholly superfluous question in a displeased tone.  ’How did you get in?  I’ve given particular orders to let in no automobiles.’

‘I always get in everywhere,’ answered Logotheti coolly.  ’May I see you alone for a few minutes?’

‘If it’s business, you’d better see Mr. Bamberger,’ said Van Torp.  ’I came here for a rest.  Mr. Bamberger has come over for a few days.  You’ll find him at his chambers in Hare Court.’

‘No,’ returned Logotheti, ’it’s a private matter.  I shall not keep you long.’

‘Then run us up to the house in your new go-cart.’

Mr. Van Torp lifted little Ida into the motor as if she had been a rather fragile china doll instead of a girl nine years old and quite able to get up alone, and before she could sit down he was beside her.  Logotheti jumped up beside the chauffeur and the machine ran up the drive at breakneck speed.  Two minutes later they all got out more than a mile farther on, at the door of the big old house.  Ida ran away to find Miss More; the two men entered together, and went into the study.

The room had been built in the time of Edward Sixth, had been decorated afresh under Charles the Second, the furniture was of the time of Queen Anne, and the carpet was a modern Turkish one, woven in colours as fresh as paint to fit the room, and as thick as a down quilt:  it was the sort of carpet which has come into existence with the modern hotel.