‘Are you going to call on him?’ Griggs asked with a smile.

’Perhaps.  He begins to interest me.  Is it indiscreet to ask what sort of questions he put to you?’

’He’s stopping at the Carlton—­if the cabby took him there!  We gave the man half-a-crown for the job, and took his number, so I suppose it was all right.  As for the questions he asked me, that’s another matter.’

Logotheti glanced quickly at his companion’s rather grim face, and was silent for a few moments.  He judged that Mr. Feist’s inquiries must have concerned a woman, since Griggs was so reticent, and it required no great ingenuity to connect that probability with one or both of the ladies who had been at the dinner where Griggs and Feist had first met.

‘I think I shall go and ask for Mr. Feist,’ he said presently.  ’I shall say that I heard he was ill and wanted to know if I could do anything for him.’

‘I’ve no doubt he’ll be much touched by your kindness!’ said Griggs.  ’But please don’t mention the Mutton Chop Club, if you really see him.’

‘Oh no!  Besides, I shall let him do the talking.’

‘Then take care that you don’t let him talk you to death!’

Logotheti smiled as he hailed a passing hansom; he nodded to his companion, told the man to go to the Carlton, and drove away, leaving Griggs to continue his walk alone.

The elderly man of letters had not talked about Mr. Feist with any special intention, and was very far from thinking that what he had said would lead to any important result.  He liked the Greek, because he liked most Orientals, under certain important reservations and at a certain distance, and he had lived amongst them long enough not to be surprised at anything they did.  Logotheti had been disappointed in not finding the Primadonna at home, and he was not inclined to put up with the usual round of an evening in London during the early part of the season as a substitute for what he had lost.  He was the more put out, because, when he had last seen Margaret, three or four days earlier, she had told him that if he came on that evening at about seven o’clock he would probably find her alone.  Having nothing that looked at all amusing to occupy him, he was just in the mood to do anything unusual that presented itself.

Griggs guessed at most of these things, and as he walked along he vaguely pictured to himself the interview that was likely to take place.

CHAPTER XII

Opinion was strongly against Mr. Van Torp.  A millionaire is almost as good a mark at which to throw mud as a woman of the world whose reputation has never before been attacked, and when the two can be pilloried together it is hardly to be expected that ordinary people should abstain from pelting them and calling them bad names.