“With the Rodneys?  My dear fellow, suppose that they object to the substitution!  Really, you know, it’s not to be thought of.”

“Deuce take it, man, the Rodneys are not to know that there has been a substitution.  Perfectly simple, can’t you see?”

“I’m damned if I do.”

“What a stupid ass you are, Brock!  The Rodneys have never laid eyes on me.  They know of me as Edith’s husband, that’s all.  They are to take you in as Medcroft, of course.”

At this point Brock set up an emphatic remonstrance.  He began by laughing his friend to scorn; then, as Medcroft persisted, went so far as to take him severely to task for the proposed imposition on the unsuspecting Rodneys, to say nothing of the trick he would play upon the convention of architects.

“I’d be recognised as an impostor,” he said warmly, “and booted out of the convention.  I shudder to think of what Mr. Rodney will do to me when he learns the truth.  Why, Medcroft, you must be crazy.  There will be dozens of architects there who know you personally or by sight.  You—­”

“My dear boy, if they don’t see me there, they can’t very well recognise me, can they?  If necessary, you can affect an illness and stay away from the sessions altogether.  Give a statement to the press from the privacy of the sickroom—­regret your inability to take part in the discussions, and all that, you know.  Hire a nurse, if necessary.  You might venture to express an opinion or two on vital topics, in my name.  I don’t care a hang what you say.  I only want ’em to think I’m there.  No doubt our enemies will have a spy or two hanging about to see that I am actually off for a jaunt with the Rodneys, but they will be Viennese and they won’t know me from Adam.  What’s the odds, so long as Edith is there to stand by you?  If she’s willing to assume that you are her husband—­”

“Good Lord!” half shouted Brock, leaping to his feet, wide-eyed.  “You don’t mean to say that she is—­is—­is to go to Vienna with me?”

“Emphatically, yes.  She’s also invited.  Of course, she’s going.”

“You mean that she’s going just as you are going—­by proxy?” murmured Brock helplessly.

“Proxy, the devil!  ’Pon my soul, Brock, you’re downright stupid.  She can’t have a proxy.  They know her.  The Rodneys are in some way connections of hers, and all that—­third cousins.  If she isn’t there to vouch for you, how the deuce can you expect to—­”

“Medcroft, you are crazy!  No one but an insane man would submit his wife to—­Why, good Lord, man, think of the scandal!  She won’t have a shred left—­”

“At the proper time the matter will be explained to the Rodneys,—­not at first, you know,—­and I’ll be in a position to step into your shoes before the party returns to Paris.  Afterwards the whole trick will be exposed to the world, and she’ll be a heroine.”

“I’m absolutely paralysed!” mumbled Brock.