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308 bler, drank it and gave a little shudder. Léontine's amber eyes flashed across to mine, carrying a double question: "What is the matter with Ivan? What is the matter with you?"

"Have you any idea of where Chu-Chu has gone?" I asked Ivan.

"I could make a good guess," he answered; "in fact, I wouldn't hesitate to trace Chu-Chu's manœuvres from the time you discovered him in the café across the street."

"Would you mind doing so?" I asked.

"Not in the least," he answered indifferently—"the more so as we three have so much in common."

"In what way? " Léontine interrupted.

Ivan's lips parted in his thin smile. "We are all three of us of the type incomplete criminal," he answered. We have been master thieves and have risen high in our profession despite our defects; but not one of us could ever attain a real success in crime because we are all of us cursed with that peculiar hampering quality which is known as heart. We have our decencies, our kindlinesses, our petty nobilities, and no successful thief can permit himself to wear such clogs as these. Léontine, for example"—he glanced at me—"has the infirmity of following only the dictates of her heart without reference to her profit. You, Monsieur Clamart, have the worm in your criminal core in your obsession for keeping your promised word. As for me, I have the weakness of abhorring physical pain, whether for myself or others. My ancestors were, perhaps, impaled by Hmelnitski, and no doubt I inherited the