and arrange lights and colours with the skill of an artist when a suitable setting for her pretty self was concerned.  She had all the charms of womanly weakness without any old-fashioned and grandmotherly narrowness; she was quite free and emancipated in mind and manners, no man had to modify his language for her; she preferred a double meaning to a single one, and a risque story to a plain one.  She had an excellent taste in dinners, a critical one in liqueurs, and a catholic one in men.

She was most gracious to Rawson-Clew when he was introduced, breaking up her court and dismissing her admirers solely to accommodate him.  The instant she saw him, before she heard who he was, she picked him out as the game best worthy of her prowess, and she lost no time in addressing herself to the chase with the skill and determination of a Diana—­though that perhaps is hardly a good comparison, enthusiasm for the chase being about the only quality she shared with the maiden huntress.

Rawson-Clew did not show signs of succumbing at once to her charms; she hardly expected that he would, for she gave him credit for knowing his own value and was not displeased thereby; where is the pleasure of sport if the quarry be captured at the outset?  But if he did not succumb he did all that was otherwise expected of him, standing in attendance on her and sitting by her when he was invited to the settee she had chosen in a quiet corner.  So well, indeed, did he comport himself that by the time they parted she felt fairly satisfied with her progress.

Perhaps she would have been less satisfied if she had heard something he said soon after.  A man he knew left the house at the same time he did and persuaded him to come to the club.  On the way the little lady came in for some discussion; the other man chiefly gave his opinion though he once asked Rawson-Clew what he thought of his young cousin’s wife.

“As a wife?” he answered; “I should not think of her.  If I wanted, as I certainly do not, the privilege of paying that kind of woman’s bills, I should not bother to marry her.”

The other man laughed, but if he quarrelled with anything in the answer, it appeared to be the taste rather than the judgment.  He maintained that the lady was charming; Rawson-Clew merely said—­

“Think so?” and did not even trouble to defend his opinion.

At the club he found a box that had come for him by parcels post.  A wooden one with the address printed on a card and nailed to the lid, which was screwed down.  It did not look particularly interesting; he told one of the club servants to unscrew it for him.  When he came to examine the contents he found, first a lot of damp packing, and then a wide-necked stoppered bottle, two-thirds full of white powder.  It bore a label printed neatly like the address—­

“Herr Van de Greutz’s Explosive.

“Formula as he said it....”

For a moment Rawson-Clew held the bottle, staring at it in blank astonishment; so tense was his attitude that it caught the other man’s attention.