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 But Phil Abingdon's glance was unrelenting.

"In your opinion it may be so, but you won't do me the honour of consulting mine."

Harley had half anticipated this attitude, but had hoped that she would not adopt it. She possessed in a high degree the feminine art of provoking a quarrel. But he found much consolation in the fact that she had thus shifted the discussion from the abstract to the personal. He smiled slightly, and Phil Abingdon's expression relaxed in response and she lowered her eyes quickly. "Why do you persistently treat me like a child?" she said.

"I don't know," replied Harley, delighted but bewildered by her sudden change of mood. "Perhaps because I want to."

She did not answer him, but stared abstractedly out of the cab window; and Harley did not break this silence, much as he would have liked to do so. He was mentally reviewing his labours of the preceding day when, in the character of a Colonial visitor with much time on his hands, he had haunted the Savoy for hours in the hope of obtaining a glimpse of Ormûz Khân. His vigil had been fruitless, and on returning by a roundabout route to his office he had bitterly charged himself with wasting valuable time upon a side issue. Yet when, later, he had sat in his study endeavouring to arrange his ideas in order, he had discovered many points in his own defence.