Jacob, on his return from the telephone, found to his surprise a familiar figure seated before the piano in the long drawing-room, an apartment more picturesque than ever now in the shaded lamplight, with its faded yellow satin furniture, its amber hangings, and its quaint perfume of bygone days. Lady Mary came to meet him.

“You see what I have done for you,” she whispered.

“Miss Bultiwell!”

Lady Mary nodded.

“You’ll have to be careful, though,” she warned him. “I can see that there has been some trouble—that the course of true love hasn’t been running exactly as it should.”

“I told you that,” Jacob reminded her dismally. “I am beginning to believe that she hates me.”

“Not she,” was the cheerful reply. “Look here, mother’s gone into the housekeeper’s room for a moment. Dad and Mr. Montague are adding up how much they have made out of you. You slip out on to the terrace there, before she turns around, and I’ll bring her out directly.”

Jacob did as he was directed, and, with the echoes of Sybil’s song still in his ears, stepped out on to a wide balcony and stood looking over the tops of the lime trees towards Buckingham Palace. Presently there was a rustle of skirts, the sound of voices, and the two girls appeared. Sybil stopped short when she saw Jacob, but Lady Mary stood in the way of her retreat.

“You know Mr. Pratt, don’t you?” she asked carelessly. “I thought so. Miss Bultiwell’s a perfect dear,” she continued, turning to Jacob. “She comes across the Square and sings to me sometimes after dinner and even condescends to play my accompaniments. You’ve no idea what a tax that is upon any one’s good nature.”

“I understood that you were to be alone this evening,” Sybil remarked.

“But we are alone—practically,” Lady Mary declared. “I am sure you wouldn’t count Mr. Montague, and Mr. Pratt is an old friend.—One moment, there’s my mother calling. Don’t move, either of you, or we shall have to sit in that stuffy drawing-room all the evening.”

They were alone, and Jacob found it exceedingly difficult to think of anything to say.

“I had no idea that you were persona grata in this household,” Sybil remarked coldly.

“I’m not—if it means what it sounds as if it did,” Jacob replied. “I am asked here because I am very rich and because the Marquis is interested in money-making schemes. Do you like being a nursery governess?”

“I hate it!”

“Worse than giving dancing lessons?”

“You needn’t rub it in. That was just an unfortunate episode.”

“Unfortunate, you call it?”

“Unfortunate,” she repeated, “for if those two men had been half as clever as I thought they were, they wouldn’t have bungled the matter, and I should have been able to make a real start in life.”

“With my money?”

“Yes, but not given by you. Taken from you!”

“Miss Bultiwell,” Jacob asked wistfully, “are you never going to get rid of this ridiculous prejudice against me?”

“Never!”

“You know—that I admire you more than any one else in the world?”

“I am glad to hear it, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It makes me unhappy.”

“Then I’m glad you find me attractive,” she declared. “I only wish I had really beautiful clothes and were far better looking. Then you might suffer more.”

“Some day,” he said, drawing nearer to her, “you will try me too high.”

She laughed scornfully.

“Are you trying to threaten me?”

He came nearer still. His hand rested against the wall, within a few inches of her. Her lips were a little parted, but her eyes flashed.

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “How dare you come so near to me!”

His eyes met hers steadily.

“I am going to propose,” he told her. “I can’t from the other side of the balcony.”

“Propose!” she repeated contemptuously.

“Will you marry me please, Sybil?” he asked.

“Will I—”

“I think you will some day,” he went on. “It would make things simpler if you’d say ‘yes’ now.”

She was speechless. For the first time Jacob felt that he had scored. Perhaps it was not altogether to his disadvantage that at that moment a footman stepped out on to the balcony with a small package for him. Sybil slipped away and Jacob followed her into the room. Lady Mary looked up from the piano.

“One more song, Miss Bultiwell?” she suggested.

“If you will excuse me,” Sybil replied, “I must go home now.”

“Must you?” Lady Mary murmured, “Mr. Pratt will see you across the Square.”

“Quite unnecessary, thank you,” was the curt rejoinder.

“Besides, we rather want Mr. Pratt,” the Marquis, who had just made his appearance, intervened. “James can step across with Miss Bultiwell.”

Sybil moved quickly towards the door.

“Please don’t let any one stir,” she begged. “It is barely a hundred yards and I much prefer going alone.”

Lady Mary got up from the piano and detained Jacob as he turned to follow the other two men.

“Mr. Pratt,” she asked, “how did you contrive to offend Miss Bultiwell?”

“I refused to put some money into her father’s business,” he explained. “Her father was hopelessly bankrupt and tried to palm off a false balance sheet on me. He afterwards shot himself. It was unfortunate, but I cannot see that I was to blame.”

Lady Mary sighed.

“Of course,” she said, “I feel I am being rather generous in trying to help you, because I am beginning to rather like you myself.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything against your encouraging the feeling,” Jacob replied, with a rather sad twinkle in his eyes. “I don’t think Sybil will ever have me.”

She made a little grimace.

“I don’t like being a second choice,” she confessed. “Couldn’t you get to like me best?”

“What about the other fellow?”

“He’s coming in with Jack in a few minutes,” she said. “I must ask him about it. I think I shall tell him that my affections are wavering.”

“As soon as the coast is clear,” Jacob began,—

“Humbug!” she interrupted. “Go down and be fleeced.”

The scene was laid when Jacob reached the library. He slipped into the vacant chair and accepted the pen which the Marquis handed to him.

“Leave the cheque open, please,” Mr. Dane Montague begged. “We have to hand the money over in cash to-morrow morning.”

“Certainly,” Jacob assented. “By the bye, will you let me have one more glance at the undertaking to sell?”

“You can read it through as many times as you like,” the other replied, producing it. “It’s as tight a contract as can be drawn. The lawyer’s letter proves that.”

Jacob nodded, and, spreading the document out, tapped it with the end of his penholder.

“There is just one thing omitted which I think should be in,” he said.

“What’s that?” Mr. Montague demanded.

“Well, I think you ought to add ‘Leicester Square’ after the Empress Music Hall,” Jacob pointed out. “Curiously enough, there happens to be another Empress Music Hall in Shoreditch, the proprietor of which spells his name P-e-t-e-r. I looked it up in the telephone directory just now.”

There was a cold and ominous silence. Mr. Montague breathed heavily. The Marquis sighed.

“Most unfortunate!” he murmured.

“Most what?” Jacob asked, turning towards him.

“Most unfortunate,” the Marquis repeated. “You are the first person, Mr. Pratt, to whom this—er—enterprise has been suggested, who has seen through our little financial effort.”

Jacob was somewhat staggered. He looked across at Montague.

“You’re on top again, Pratt,” that gentleman conceded gloomily. “The music hall in question is the Shoreditch ‘Empress.’”

“And do you mean to say,” Jacob demanded incredulously, “that you have induced the people whose names are on that list to part with their money, believing they are going to acquire an interest in the Empress Music Hall in Leicester Square?”

“That’s all right,” Montague assented. “It was dead easy. You see, they were mostly the Marquis’s friends, toffs, without any head for business, and we swore them to absolute secrecy—told them if they breathed a word of it, the whole thing would be spoilt.”

“But you aren’t giving fifty thousand pounds for the Shoreditch Empress?”

The financier laughed scornfully.

“Not likely! That’s where the Marquis and I make a bit. We have another agreement with Peter, who’s a pal and a white man, to buy the place for fifteen thousand. Then we’ve an arrangement—”

“You needn’t go on,” Jacob interrupted. “I can quite see that there are plenty of ways of working the swindle.”

“Swindle?” his host repeated, with a pained expression. “My dear Mr. Pratt!”

“Why, what else can you call it?” Jacob protested.

The Marquis coughed.

“It is only lately,” he said, “that, with the assistance of Mr. Dane Montague, I have endeavoured to supplement my income in this fashion. I do not understand the harshness of your term, Mr. Pratt, as applied to this transaction. I have little experience of city life, but I have always understood that money was made there, in financial and Stock Exchange circles, by buying from a man something which you knew was worth more money, selling it to another and—er—pocketing the difference. Surely this involves a certain amount of what a purist would call deceit?”

“On the contrary,” Jacob pointed out, “that is a fair bargain, because the two men have different ideas of the value of a thing, and each backs his own opinion.”

“But there are surely many cases,” the Marquis argued, “in which the seller knows and the buyer does not know? Is it incumbent on the seller to impart to the buyer his superior knowledge? I think not. Without a doubt, business in the city is conducted on the general lines of the man knowing the most making the most. I look upon our little transaction as being exactly on parallel lines. We knew that the Shoreditch Music Hall was meant. The people who advanced the money thought that the Leicester Square Music Hall was meant. Therefore, we make the money.”

Jacob rose to his feet. He was feeling a little dazed.

“Your ideas of commercial ethics, Marquis,” he acknowledged, “are excellent in their way, but do you imagine that they will be shared by the members of your family who have parted with their money?”

“I trust, sir,” the Marquis replied stiffly, “that they will behave like sportsmen and see the humour of the transaction.”

“I hope they will!” Jacob murmured fervently, as he took his leave.

“In any case,” the Marquis concluded complacently, “their cheques have been cashed.”