"I hope it's because you are kind-hearted."
"Not at all. Do you think I should do it if you were fifty, fat and a fright? Of course I shouldn't. And no one knows that better than you. I'm doing it because you're young and charming and slim and attractive and smart. Though forty-six, I am still a man. The chief difference between me and most other men is that I know and openly admit my motives. That's what makes me so dangerous. You should beware of me. Take note that I haven't asked you what you're been saying to Carthew. Nor shall I ask him. Now what exactly do you want me to do?"
"Only not to let the law case about the accident go any further."
"And are you in a position to pay the insurance company for the damage to my car?"
"Oh! Mr. Carrel Quire will pay."
"Are you sure? Are you quite sure that Mr. Carrel Quire is not spending twice as much as his ministerial salary, that salary being the whole of his financial resources except loans from millionaires who will accept influence instead of interest? I won't enquire whether Mr. Carrel Quire pays your salary regularly. If he does, it furnishes the only instance of regularity in the whole of his gorgeous career. If our little affair becomes public it might ruin Mr. Carrel Quire as a politician—at the least it would set him back for ten years. And I am particularly anxious to ruin Mr. Carrel Quire. In doing so I shall accomplish a patriotic act."
"Oh, Mr. Prohack!"
"Yes. Mr. Carrel Quire may be—probably is—a delightful fellow, but he is too full of brains, and he constitutes the gravest danger that has threatened the British Empire for a hundred years. Hence it is my duty to ruin him if I get the chance; and I've got the chance. I don't see how he could survive the exposure of the simple fact that while preaching anti-waste he is keeping motor-cars in the names of young women."
The car had stopped in front of a shop over whose door a pair of gilded animals like nothing in zoology were leaping amiably at each other. Miss Winstock began to search neurotically in a bag for a handkerchief.
"This is the scene of my next appointment," Mr. Prohack continued. "Would you prefer to leave me at once or will you wait again?"