“Yes.  I come across a few of them in my office,” Robert Pettifer said grimly; and once more embarrassment threatened to descend upon the party.  But Mr. Hazlewood was off upon a favourite theme.  His eyes glistened and the object of the gathering vanished for the moment from his thoughts.

“And in the second place,” he resumed, “the losers should be accounted to have won the game.”

“Yes, that must be right,” said Pettifer.  “Upon my word you are in form, Hazlewood.”

“But why?” asked Mrs. Pettifer.

Harold Hazlewood smiled upon her as upon a child and explained: 

“Because by adopting that system you would do something to eradicate the spirit of rivalry, the desire to win, the ambition to beat somebody else which is at the bottom of half our national troubles.”

“And all our national success,” said Pettifer.

Hazlewood patted his brother-in-law upon the shoulder.  He looked at him indulgently.  “You are a Tory, Robert,” he said, and implied that argument with such an one was mere futility.

He had still his hand upon Pettifer’s shoulder when the door opened.  Stella saw by the change in his face that it was Thresk who was entering.  But she did not move.

“Ah,” said Mr. Hazlewood.  “Come over here and take a cup of tea.”

Thresk came forward to the table.  He seemed altogether unconscious that the eyes of the two men were upon him.

“Thank you.  I should like one,” he said, and at the sound of his voice Stella Ballantyne turned around in her chair.

“You!” she cried and the cry was pitched in a tone of pleasure and welcome.

“Of course you know Mrs. Ballantyne,” said Hazlewood.  He saw Stella rise from her chair and hold out her hand to Thresk with the colour aflame in her cheeks.

“You are surprised to see me again,” she said.

Thresk took her hand cordially.  “I am delighted to see you again,” he replied.

“And I to see you,” said Stella, “for I have never yet had a chance of thanking you”; and she spoke with so much frankness that even Pettifer was shaken in his suspicions.  She turned upon Mr. Hazlewood with a mimicry of indignation.  “Do you know, Mr. Hazlewood, that you have done a very cruel thing?”

Mr. Hazlewood was utterly discomfited by the failure of his plot, and when Stella attacked him so directly he had not a doubt but that she had divined his treachery.

“I?” he gasped.  “Cruel?  How?”

“In not telling me beforehand that I was to meet so good a friend of mine.”  Her face relaxed to a smile as she added:  “I would have put on my best frock in his honour.”

Undoubtedly Stella carried off the honour of that encounter.  She had at once driven the battle with spirit onto Hazlewood’s own ground and left him worsted and confused.  But the end was not yet.  Mr. Hazlewood waited for his son Richard, and when Richard appeared he exclaimed: