Cigarettes had replaced the desire of eating and drinking.  Merton had engaged a withdrawing room, where he meant to be closeted with his guests, one by one, administer the oath, and prosecute delicate inquiries on the important question of immunity from infection.  But, after a private word or two with Logan, he deemed these conspicuous formalities needless.  ‘We have material enough to begin with,’ said Logan.  ’We knew beforehand that some of the men were safe, and certain of the women.’

There was a balcony.  The providence of nature had provided a full moon, and a night of balm.  The imaginative maintained that the scent of hay was breathed, among other odours, over Pall Mall the Blest.  Merton kept straying with one guest or another into a corner of the balcony.  He hinted that there was a thing in prospect.  Would the guest hold himself, or herself, ready at need?  Next morning, if the promise was given, the guest might awake to peace of conscience.  The scheme was beneficent, and, incidentally, cheerful.

To some he mentioned retainers; money down, to speak grossly.  Most accepted on the strength of Merton’s assurances that their services must always be ready.  There were difficulties with Miss Willoughby and Miss Markham.  The former lady (who needed it most) flatly refused the arrangement.  Merton pleaded in vain.  Miss Markham, the girl known to her contemporaries as Milo, could not hazard her present engagement at Madame Claudine’s.  If she was needed by the scheme in the dead season she thought that she could be ready for whatever it was.

Nobody was told exactly what the scheme was.  It was only made clear that nobody was to be employed without the full and exhaustive knowledge of the employers, for whom Merton and Logan were merely agents.  If in doubt, the agents might apply for counsel to the lady patronesses, whose very names tranquilised the most anxious inquirers.  The oath was commuted for a promise, on honour, of secrecy.  And, indeed, little if anything was told that could be revealed.  The thing was not political:  spies on Russia or France were not being recruited.  That was made perfectly clear.  Anybody might withdraw, if the prospect, when beheld nearer, seemed undesirable.  A mystified but rather merry gathering walked away to remote lodgings, Miss Maskelyne alone patronising a hansom.

On the day after the dinner Logan and Merton reviewed the event and its promise, taking Trevor into their counsels.  They were not ill satisfied with the potential recruits.

‘There was one jolly little thing in white,’ said Trevor.  ’So pretty and flowering!  “Cherries ripe themselves do cry,” a line in an old song, that’s what her face reminded me of.  Who was she?’

‘She came with Miss Martin, the penny novelist,’ said Logan.  ’She is stopping with her.  A country parson’s daughter, come up to town to try to live by typewriting.’