“With pleasure,” I answered, and followed him out of the auction chamber down some steps through the door to the left, and ultimately into a little cupboard-like room lined with shelves full of books and ledgers.

He closed the door and locked it.

“Now,” he said in a tone of the villain in a novel who at last has come face to face with the virtuous heroine, “now we are alone.  Mr. Quatermain, let me see—­those butterflies.”

I placed the case on a deal table which stood under a skylight in the room.  I opened it; I removed the cover of wadding, and there, pressed between two sheets of glass and quite uninjured after all its journeyings, appeared the golden flower, glorious even in death, and by its side the broad green leaf.

The young gentleman called Somers looked at it till I thought his eyes would really start out of his head.  He turned away muttering something and looked again.

“Oh!  Heavens,” he said at last, “oh!  Heavens, is it possible that such a thing can exist in this imperfect world?  You haven’t faked it, Mr. Half—­I mean Quatermain, have you?”

“Sir,” I said, “for the second time you are making insinuations.  Good morning,” and I began to shut up the case.

“Don’t be offhanded,” he exclaimed.  “Pity the weaknesses of a poor sinner.  You don’t understand.  If only you understood, you would understand.”

“No,” I said, “I am bothered if I do.”

“Well, you will when you begin to collect orchids.  I’m not mad, really, except perhaps on this point, Mr. Quatermain,”—­this in a low and thrilling voice—­“that marvellous Cypripedium—­your friend is right, it is a Cypripedium—­is worth a gold mine.”

“From my experience of gold mines I can well believe that,” I said tartly, and, I may add, prophetically.

“Oh!  I mean a gold mine in the figurative and colloquial sense, not as the investor knows it,” he answered.  “That is, the plant on which it grew is priceless.  Where is the plant, Mr. Quatermain?”

“In a rather indefinite locality in Africa east by south,” I replied.  “I can’t place it to within three hundred miles.”

“That’s vague, Mr. Quatermain.  I have no right to ask it, seeing that you know nothing of me, but I assure you I am respectable, and in short, would you mind telling me the story of this flower?”

“I don’t think I should,” I replied, a little doubtfully.  Then, after another good look at him, suppressing all names and exact localities, I gave him the outline of the tale, explaining that I wanted to find someone who would finance an expedition to the remote and romantic spot where this particular Cypripedium was believed to grow.

Just as I finished my narrative, and before he had time to comment on it, there came a violent knocking at the door.

“Mr. Stephen,” said a voice, “are you there, Mr. Stephen?”

“By Jove! that’s Briggs,” exclaimed the young man.  “Briggs is my father’s manager.  Shut up the case, Mr. Quatermain.  Come in, Briggs,” he went on, unlocking the door slowly.  “What is it?”