‘Then you really will essay the adventure?’

‘Like a bird,’ answered the lady.  ’It will be great fun.  I shall pick up copy about the habits of the middle classes in the Midlands.’

‘They won’t recognise you as the author of your more criminal romances?’

’How can they?  I sign them “Passion Flower” and “Nightshade,” and “La Tofana,” and so on.’

‘You will dress as in your photograph in The Young Girl?’

’I will, and take a fichu to wear in the evening.  They always wear fichus in evening dress.  But, look here, do you want a happy ending to this romance?’

’How can it be happy if you are to be successful?  Miss Jane Truman will be miserable, and Mr. James Warren will die of remorse and a broken heart, when you—­’

’Fail to crown his flame, and Jane has too much pride to welcome back the wanderer?’

‘I’m afraid that, or something like that, will be the end of it,’ said Merton, ‘and, perhaps, on reflection, we had better drop the affair.’

’But suppose I could manage a happy ending?  Suppose I reconcile Mr. Warren to the union?  I am all for happy endings myself.  I drink to King Charles II., who declared that while he was king all tragedies should end happily.’

‘You don’t mean that you can persuade Jane to be vaccinated?’

’One never knows till one tries.  You’ll find that I shall make a happy conclusion to my Borgia novel, and that is not so easy.  You see Lionardo goes to the Pope’s jeweller and exchanges the—­’

Miss Martin paused and remained absorbed in thought.

Suddenly she danced round the room with much grace and abandon, while Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded the performance.

‘You have your idea?’ he asked.

‘I have it.  Happy ending!  Hurrah!’

Miss Martin spun round like a dancing Dervish, and finally fell into another arm-chair, overcome by the heat and the intoxication of genius.

‘We owe a candle to Saint Alexander Borgia!’ she said, when she recovered her breath.

‘Miss Martin,’ said Merton gravely, ’this is a serious matter.  You are not going, I trust, to poison the lemons for the elder Mr. Warren’s lemon squash?  He is strictly Temperance, you know.’

‘Poison the lemons?  With a hypodermic syringe?’ asked Miss Martin.  ’No; that is good business.  I have made one of my villains do that, but that is not my idea.  Perfectly harmless, my idea.’

‘But sensational, I fear?’ asked Merton.

‘Some very cultured critics might think so,’ the lady admitted.  ’But I am sure to succeed, and I hear the merry, merry wedding bells of the Bulcester tabernacle ringing a peal for the happy pair.’

‘Well, what is the plan?’

‘That is my secret.’

’But I must know.  I am responsible.  Tell me, or I telegraph to Mr. Warren:  “Lecturer never vaccinated; sorry for my mistake."’