“Matt!” Hamar cried, seizing his elbow.  “I want a word with you.”

“Not now,” Kelson protested, looking hungrily at Lilian.

“Yes, now!” Hamar said.  “At once!  I shan’t keep you more than five minutes”—­and he dragged Kelson away with him.

The moment they had gone, Curtis, who was obviously the worse for drink, addressed Lilian.

“Kelson won’t come back,” he said.  “Hamar is mad with him.  He says if he ever sees you two together again he’ll sack you.  Let me take his place!”

A sudden inspiration came to her.  There were one or two things she badly wanted to know—­and with a bit of coaxing, Curtis, in his present state, might tell her anything.  She would try.

“All right,” she said.  “I’ll come.”

They got into the taxi and Curtis, as far as his fuddled senses would allow, made violent love to her.

After supper—­they had supper in his rooms—­he grew a great deal more amorous.  She let him sit close beside her, she let him put his arm round her waist; but before she let him kiss her, she struck her bargain.

“No!” she said, thrusting him away.  “Not just yet.  That can come later—­if you are good.  I want you to tell me something first.  About this marriage of Mr. Hamar and Miss Martin—­is it likely to come off?”

“Ish it likely!” Curtis said with a stupid leer.  “Ish it likely!  Not much.  Leon means nothing!  He only wants the fun of being engaged to a pretty girl—­like I wantsh fun with you.  Nothing more.”

“Then he’ll throw her over after a while.”

“After he gets what he wantsh to get.”

“And suppose she prove different to what he expects?”

“After he pashes stage seven—­that will be all right!” Curtis said giving her waist an emphatic squeeze.  “Everybody will be all right then.  You and Matt—­for exshample—­and I and—­and—­whishky!”

“Stage seven!  What do you mean?”

“Why don’t—­you know!” Curtis gurgled—­and then a sudden gleam of intelligence coming into his watery eyes, he added.  “Then I shan’t tell you—­nothing shall make me.  It’s a shecret!”

“I won’t kiss you till you do!” Lilian Rosenberg said.

“I’ll make you.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Lilian Rosenberg cried, disengaging herself from his grasp, and rising.  “Don’t you dare touch me.  I’m going.”

Curtis watched her with a helpless grin.  Then he suddenly cried out, “Come back!  Come back, I shay!”

“Well, will you do as I want?” Lilian Rosenberg said.

“I’ll do anything—­anything to please you—­if only you shtay with me.”

She sat down, and his arm once again encircled her.

“Now,” she said, pushing his face away.  “Tell me!”

Bit by bit she drew out of him the whole history of the compact with the Unknown, how in stage five, the stage they were about to enter, they would have fresh powers conferred upon them—­their present power, i.e. of working spells and causing diseases, being then cancelled; how they would obtain supreme power over women when they reached the final stage—­stage seven; and how the compact would be broken and their ruin brought about, should either of them marry, or should anything happen before this final stage was reached, to disunite them.