“Haven’t you?”

“My son,” said Malcourt, “if somebody’ll prove it to me I might sleep better.  Just at present I’m ready for anything truly criminal.  There was a killing at the Club all right.  I assumed the role of the defunct.  Now I haven’t any money; I’ve overdrawn my balance and my salary; Portlaw is bilious, peevish, unapproachable.  If I asked you for a loan I’d only fall a victim again to my insatiable scientific curiosity.  So I’ll just lie here and browse on cigarettes and grape-fruit until something happens—­”

“If you need any money—­”

“I told you that we are more or less alike,” nodded Malcourt.  “Your offer is partly traditional, partly impulsive, altogether ill-considered, and does your intelligence no credit!”

Hamil laughed.

“All the same it’s an offer,” he said, “and it stands.  I’m glad I know you better, Malcourt.  I’ll be sorry instead of complacently disgusted if you never pan out; but I’ll bet you do, some time.”

Malcourt looked up.

“I’m ass enough to be much obliged,” he said.  “And now, before you go, what the devil did you shoot in the woods?”

“Miss Cardross got a gobbler—­about the biggest bird I ever saw.  Eudo Stent skinned it and Mr. Cardross is going to have it set up in New York.  It’s a wonderful—­”

“Didn’t you shoot anything?”

“Oh, I assassinated a few harmless birds,” said Hamil absently; and walked out into the corridor.  “I’ve got to go over a lot of accumulated letters and things,” he called back.  “See you later, Malcourt.”

There was a mass of mail, bills, plans, and office reports for him lying on the hall table.  He gathered these up and hastened down the stairway.

On the terrace below he found Mrs. Cardross, and stopped to tell her what a splendid trip they had, and how beautifully Shiela had shot.

“You did rather well yourself,” drawled Mrs. Cardross, with a bland smile.  “Shiela says so.”

“Oh, yes, but my shooting doesn’t compare with Shiela’s.  I never knew such a girl; I never believed they existed—­”

“They are rare,” nodded the matron.  “I am glad everybody finds my little daughter so admirable in the field.”

“Beyond comparison in the field and everywhere,” said Hamil, with a cordiality so laboriously frank that Mrs. Cardross raised her eyes—­an instant only—­then continued sorting the skeins of silk in her voluminous lap.

Shiela appeared in sight among the roses across the lawn; and, as Mr. Cardross came out on the terrace to light his after-breakfast cigar, Hamil disappeared in the direction of the garden where Shiela now stood under the bougainvillia, leisurely biting into a sapodilla.

Mrs. Cardross nodded to her white-linen-clad husband, who looked very handsome with the silvered hair at his temples accentuating the clear, deep tan of his face.

“You are burnt, Neville.  Did you and the children have a good time?”