"Things are as bad as that——?"
Quinlevin shrugged. "I bettered myself a bit the next night and I'll find a way——"
He broke off with a shrug.
"But I'm not going to be wasting my talents on the little officer-boys in Guillaume's. Besides, 'twould be most unpatriotic. I'm out for bigger game, me son, that spells itself in seven figures. Nothing less than a coup d'état will satisfy the ambitions of Barry Quinlevin!"
"Well?" asked Horton shrewdly.
"For the present ye're to stay where ye are, till yer head is as tight as a drum, giving me the benefit of yer sage advice. We'll worry along. The rent of the apartment and studio is a meager two hundred francs and the food—well, we will eat enough. And Moira has some work to do. But we can't be letting the Duc forget I've ever existed. A man with a reputation in jeopardy and twenty millions of francs, you'll admit, is not to be found growing on every mulberry bush."
Horton nodded. It was blackmail then. The Duc de Vautrin——
"You wrote that you had a plan," he said. "What is it?"
Barry Quinlevin waved a careless hand.
"Fair means, as one gentleman uses to another, if he explains his negligence and remits the small balance due. Otherwise, we'll have to squeeze him. A letter from a good lawyer—if it wasn't for the testimony of Nora Burke!"