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Rh "At the present moment I'm very comfortable where I am, thanks," remarked Hugh.

"I know," she said; "but I'm so dreadfully afraid that you're the type of person who… who…" She paused, at a loss for a word.

"Who bellows like a bull, and charges head down," interrupted Hugh with a grin. She laughed with him, and just for a moment their eyes met, and she read in his something quite foreign to the point at issue. In fact, it is to be feared that the question of Lakington and his companions was not engrossing Drummond's mind, as it doubtless should have been, to the exclusion of all else.

"They're so utterly unscrupulous," she continued hurriedly, "so fiendishly clever, that even you would be like a child in their hands."

Hugh endeavoured to dissemble his pleasure at that little word "even," and only succeeded in frowning horribly.

"I will be discretion itself," he assured her firmly. "I promise you."

"I suppose I shall have to trust you," she said. "Have you seen the evening papers to-day?"

"I looked at the ones that come out in the morning labelled six p.m. before I had lunch," he answered. "Is there anything of interest?"

She handed him a copy of the Planet. "Read that little paragraph in the second column." She pointed to it, as he took the paper, and Hugh read it aloud.

"Mr. Hiram C. Potts—the celebrated American millionaire—is progressing favourably. He has gone into the country for a few days, but is sufficiently