Jack laughed heartily.

“Art never was much in your line,” he said, “though I remember how you kept pegging away at it.  And no one can be more pleased than myself to learn that you’ve dropped into a fortune.  Stick to it, Jimmie.”

“There will be another one some day, Jack—­when this is gone.  By the way, I met old Nevill last night—­dined with him.  And that reminds me—­”

He turned to his companion, the fresh-faced boy, and introduced him to Jack as the Honorable Bertie Raven.  The two shook hands cordially, and exchanged a few commonplace words.

“Come on; we’ve held up this corner long enough,” exclaimed Drexell.  “Let’s go and lunch together somewhere.  I’ll leave it to you, Raven.  Name your place.”

“Prince’s, then,” was the prompt rejoinder.

As they walked along Piccadilly the Honorable Bertie was forced ahead by the narrowness of the pavement and the jostling crowds, and Drexell whispered at Jack’s ear: 

“A good sort, that young chap.  I met him in New York a year ago.  His next eldest brother, the Honorable George, is over there now.  I believe he is going to marry a cousin of mine—­a girl who will come into a pot of money when her governor dies.”

* * * * *

Nine o’clock at night, and a room in Beak street, Regent street; a back apartment looking into a dingy court, furnished with a sort of tawdry, depressing luxury, and lighted by a pair of candles.  A richly dressed woman who had once been extremely handsome, and still retained more than a trace of her charms, half reclined on a couch; a fluffy mass of coppery-red hair had escaped from under her hat, and shaded her large eyes; shame and confusion, mingled with angry defiance, deepened the artificial blush on her cheeks.

Victor Nevill stood in the middle of the floor, confronting her with a faint, mocking smile at his lips.  He had not taken the trouble to remove his hat.  He wore evening dress, with a light cloak over it, and he twirled a stick carelessly between his gloved fingers.

“So it is really you!” he said.

“If you came to sneer at me, go!” the woman answered spitefully.  “You have your revenge.  How did you find me?”

“It was not easy, but I persevered—­”

“Why?”

“For a purpose.  I will tell you presently.  And do not think that I came to sneer.  I am sorry for you—­grieved to find you struggling in the vortex of London.”  He looked about the room, which, indeed, told a plain story.  “You were intended for better things,” he added.  “Where is Count Nordhoff?”

“He left me—­three years ago.”

“I wouldn’t mind betting that you cleaned him out, and then heartlessly turned him adrift.”

“You are insolent!”

“And I dare say you have had plenty of others since.  What has become of the Jew?”

The woman’s eyes flashed like a tiger’s.