“Change your terms,” she suggested; “where there are robbers there must be victims.  But one may despise the victims all the same.  One may find their content, or rather their inaction, ignoble.”

“Generally speaking, it is the industrious who prosper,” he affirmed.

She shook her head.

“If that were so, all would be well,” she declared.  “As a matter of fact, it is entirely an affair of opportunity and temperament.”

“Why, you are a socialist,” he said.  “You should come and talk to my friend Isaac.”

“I am not a socialist because I do not care one fig about others,” she objected.  “It is only myself I think of.”

“If you do not sympathize with laws, you at least recognize morals?”

She laughed gayly, leaning back against the dark green upholstery and showing her flawless teeth; her long, narrow eyes with their seductive gleam flashed into his.  A lighter spirit possessed her.

“Not other people’s,” she declared.  “I have my own code and I live by it.  As for you,—­”

She paused.  Her sudden fit of gayety seemed to pass.

“As for me?” he murmured.

“I am a little conscience-stricken,” she said slowly.  “I think I ought to have left you where you were.  I am not at all sure that you would not have been happier.  You are a very nice boy, Mr. Arnold Chetwode, much too good for that stuffy little office in Tooley Street, but I do not know whether it is really for your good if one is inclined to try and help you to escape.  If you saw another man holding a position you wanted yourself, would you throw him out, if you could, by sheer force, or would you think of your laws and your morals?”

“It depends a little upon how much I wanted it,” he confessed.

She laughed.

“Ah!  I see, then, that there are hopes of you,” she admitted.  “You should read the reign of Queen Elizabeth if you would know what Englishmen should be like.  You know, I had an English mother, and she was descended from Francis Drake....  Ah, we are arrived!”

They had lost themselves somewhere between Oxford Street and Regent Street.  The car pulled up in front of a restaurant which Arnold had certainly never seen or heard of before.  It was quite small, and it bore the name “Cafe Andre” painted upon the wall.  The lower windows were all concealed by white curtains.  The entrance hall was small, and there was no commissionnaire.  Fenella, who led the way in, did not turn into the restaurant but at once ascended the stairs.  Arnold followed her, his sense of curiosity growing stronger at every moment.  On the first landing there were two doors with glass tops.  She opened one and motioned him to enter.

“Will you wait for me for a few moments?” she said.  “I am going to telephone.”