Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/61

Rh in time. Fact is, most thieves chuck the game soon after middle age, if they're out of jail. I'll hand it out cold that I've quit, and make it plain that so far as the old gang is concerned I never knew it."

This may sound queer, but as a matter of fact it's nearly as frequent for a crook to turn honest as it is for an honest person to turn crook.

So out I went and hailed a motor-taxi and spun through the Bois to Bagatelle. I told my driver to let me out at the main gate on the side of the Bois, when I walked across to the rose garden. There was nobody in sight, so I strolled up to the little summer-house, looking over the gardens, and waited, for I was a bit ahead of time. The day was perfect; cloudless and the air soft and fragrant. Nobody was in the gardens, so far as I could see, and pretty soon I got tired of waiting and started to stroll down one of the narrow paths, banked on either side with perfumed laurel.

It was at the first abrupt bend of the little path that I came face to face with Léontine. She was in a dark blue riding-habit with a little tricorne hat of Loden felt cocked a bit on her wavy black hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling, and as we came together she flung back her head and threw out both arms.

"Frank!" she cried, as if I had been a long-lost lover, instead of a burglarising acquaintance of from nine until two. The next instant she was in my arms, or to put it more exactly, I was in hers, and her fresh face, with its faint odour of Houbigant, was crushed against mine.

My friend, a man can't stand being fondled by as