“Look here, Razors,” said he, “you needn’t go shying any syphons about.  There’s nothing behind this show but business.  What I do for Miss Grace I do for cold cash.  See?  Of course, I take an interest in the girl—­”

“Interest at something like a hundred and fifty per cent., I suppose?”

“That’s about the figure—­With your permission, I’ll remove that fizz-gig out of your way—­What do you think of it—­my idea, I mean?”

“I think there’s a d——­d lot more interest than principle in it.”

“You young goat!  I’m out of it.  Honour bright.  So if you feel inclined to slog away and boom the lady, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.”

“Is there any reason why I should?” inquired Rickman with treacherous severity.  So immense was his calm that Dicky was taken in by it and blundered.

“Well, yes,” said he, “in that case, we might consider our little account settled.”

“Our little account, Dicky, will be run up on the wrong side of the paper if you don’t take care.”

“Wot d’you mean?”

“I mean that when you’ve got a particularly filthy job on hand, it’s as well to keep away from people who are not fond of dirt.  At any rate, I advise you not to come too near me.”

Dicky for the first time that evening looked uncomfortable.  It occurred to Dicky that whisky and soda was not the very best drink to talk business on.

“I’ve noticed, Rickman,” said he, “that since you’ve been living down in the country, you don’t seem able to understand a joke.”

But Rickman had got his legs on the other side of the window ledge, and as Dicky approached him he slid down on to the esplanade and slipped into the night.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Hardly knowing how he got there he found himself on the top of Harcombe Hill.  His head was bare and the soles of his thin slippers were cut with the flints of the hillside lane.  He had walked, walked, walked, driven by a fury in his body and a fever in his feet.

His first idea had been to get as far away as possible from his companion.  He felt that he never could be clean again after his contact with Dicky.  How had the thing happened?  Yesterday London seemed as far away from Harmouth as Babylon from Arcadia, and Rickman was not more infinitely removed from Lucia than Lucia was from Poppy; yet here they were, all three tangled together in Dicky’s complicated draw-net.  He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity, and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth.  This was what it had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions.  In language as plain as he could put it, he—­he—­had been offered a bribe to advertise Poppy Grace for the benefit of Dicky, who kept her.  To advertise a little painted—­he disposed of poor Poppy in a powerful word which would have given her propriety a fit if it could have heard him.  That he himself