"You can rely on me to be careful, darling!" Kelson said, kissing her on the lips. "I'll be discretion itself," and so he meant to be. All the same—as is the case with every lover—every lover worthy of the name of lover—who loves with all the full, ripe vigour of genuine passion, his heart played havoc with his head; and he was blind to everything save visions of his beloved. In other circumstances this would not have mattered very much, but with Hamar's lynx eyes continually watching him, it was certain to lead to disaster.
"Ed!" Hamar said to Curtis one day. "Matt's been getting into mischief. I know the symptoms well. He can't look me in the face, and every now and then, when he fancies my attention is attracted elsewhere, I catch him peeping furtively at me as if he were frightened out of his life I should ferret out some secret. It would be deplorable if now that we have got so near the end of the Compact, we should be held up by some idiotic blunder—some nonsensical love affair of his. I wonder whether it's Rosenberg or some other girl. Will you find out?"
"How can I?" Curtis growled. "I'm not his keeper."
"I know that!" Hamar said. "Come be reasonable. You want to be a Crœsus—so that you can eat and drink your head off—don't you! Well! You will! You will be one of the three wealthiest men in the world—you will have the world at your feet, if only you stick to me for the next seven months: till we have passed the seventh stage. If you don't—if either you or Matt deliberately quarrel with me, or marry—then, as I've dinned into your ears a thousand times, the Compact will be broken, and—not only that, but some frightful catastrophe will wipe us off. Now will you do what I ask? Come—a dinner with me every night this week, at the Piccadilly—champagne—and no vegetables!"
"All right," Curtis said sulkily, "for the good of the cause I suppose I must, but I hate spying."
Two nights later in a private room at the Piccadilly, after dinner, when the champagne and liqueurs had got into Curtis's head and he was leaning back in his chair, smiling and silly, Hamar suddenly said, "Ed! you remember what I told you—about watching Kelson. Have you discovered anything?"
"Shupposing I have," Curtis replied, "shupposing I haven't—whatch then?"
"Ah, but I know you have," Hamar said, striving to hide his eagerness. "Come, tell me, another liqueur—I'll square it with the Unknown—it won't hurt you!"
"Won't it!" Curtis gurgled. "Wont'ch it! I'll tell you everything. No—nothingsh, I mean."
But Hamar when once he had smelt a rat, was not easily put off. He coaxed, and coaxed, and eventually succeeded.