“Insignificant, I fear,” he admitted.  “You see, a very promising start at the Bar was somewhat interfered with by my brief period of soldiering.”

“At the present moment you have no definite career,” she declared.  “You have even been wasting your time censoring.”

“I am returning now to my profession.”

“Your profession!” she scoffed.  “That means you will spend your time wrangling with a number of other bewigged and narrow-minded people about uninteresting legal technicalities which lead nowhere and which no one cares about.”

“There is my journalism.”

“You have damned it with your own phrase ’hack journalism’!”

“I may enter Parliament.”

“Yes, to preserve your rights,” she retorted.

“I am afraid,” he sighed, “that you haven’t a very high opinion of me.”

“It is within your power to make me look upon you as the bravest, the kindest, the most farseeing of men,” she declared.

He shook his head.

“I decline to think that you would think any the better of me for committing a dishonourable action for your sake.”

“Try me,” she begged, her hand resting once more upon his.  “If you want my kind feelings, my everlasting gratitude, they are yours.  Give me that packet.”

“That is impossible,” he declared uncompromisingly.  “If you wish to alter my attitude with regard to it, you must tell me exactly from whom it comes, what it contains, and to whom it goes.”

“You ask more than is possible..  You make me almost sorry—­”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry that I saved your life,” she said boldly.  “Why should I not be?  There are many who will suffer, many who will lose their lives because of your obstinacy.”

“If you believe that, confide in me.”

She shook her head sadly.

“If only you were different!”

“I am a human being,” he protested.  “I have sympathies and heart.  I would give my life willingly to save any carnage.”

“I could never make you understand,” she murmured hopelessly.  “I shall not try.  I dare not risk failure.  Is this room hot, or is it my fancy?  Could we have a window open?”

“By all means.”

He crossed the room and lifted the blind from before one of the high windows which opened seawards.  In the panel of the wall, between the window to which he addressed himself and the next one, was a tall, gilt mirror, relic of the days, some hundreds of years ago, when the apartment had been used as a drawing-room.  Julian, by the merest accident, for the pleasure of a stolen glance at Catherine, happened to look in it as he leaned over towards the window fastening.  For a single moment he stood rigid.  Catherine had risen to her feet and, without the slightest evidence of any fatigue, was leaning, tense and alert, over the tray on which his untouched whisky and soda was placed.  Her hand was outstretched.  He saw a little stream of white powder fall into the tumbler.  An intense and sickening feeling of disappointment almost brought a groan to his lips.  He conquered himself with an effort, however, opened the window a few inches, and returned to his place.  Catherine was lying back, her eyes half-closed, her arms hanging listlessly on either side of her chair.