"I'm afraid I've misled you. I should have said that I was a clerk in the leather business until to-day. Now I happen to be independently wealthy, a clerk no longer."
"How's that—wealthy?"
"Came into a small fortune this evening—nothing immodest, but ample for one of my simple tastes and modest ambitions."
"I think," announced the lady thoughtfully, "that you are one of the slickest young liars I ever listened to."
"That must be considerable eminence," considered P. Sybarite with humility.
"On the other hand, you're unquestionably a perfect little gentleman," she pursued. "And anyhow I'm going to take you at your word and trust you. If you ever change your mind about that hundred, all you've got to do is to come back and speak for it.... Do I make you right? You're willing to go a bit out of your way to do me a favour to-night?"
"Or any other night."
"Very well." Mrs. Inche rose. "Wait here a moment."
Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the "den," and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite's range of vision as she ascended the stairs. Then she disappeared, and there was silence in the house: a breathing spell which the little man strove to employ to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrange his sadly disordered impressions.
Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, he none the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclined to see the affair through to the end.