"And if Toby remembered their numbers?"

"You could have changed them for ten shilling notes in Cheltenham."

"All these elaborate precautions!"

"You can't be too precautions when you're dealing with a woman like that.... Is this all you've given her?"

"All?"

"Yes. Did you ever give her anything any other time?"

"Well--possibly--from time to time--"

"Have you any idea of the total amount?"

"I can't say off-hand. And I can't see what it has to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it. Can you find out?"

"Certainly, if I look up my old cheque books."

"You'd better do that now."

He turned, gloomily, to his writing-table. The cheque books for the current year and the year before it betrayed various small loans to Mrs.

Levitt, amounting in all to a hundred and fifty pounds odd.

"Oh, dear," said Barbara, "all that's down against you. Still--it's all ante-Wednesday. What a pity you didn't pay her that fifty-five before your interview."

"How do you mean?"

"It's pretty certain she's misinterpreted your paying it now so soon."

"After the interview? Do you really think she misunderstood me, Barbara?"

"I think she wants you to think she did."

"You think she's trying--trying--to--"

"To sell you her silence? Yes, I do."

"Good G.o.d! I never thought of that. Blackmail."

"I don't suppose for a minute she thinks she's blackmailing you. She's just trying it on.... And she may raise her price, too. She won't rest till she's got that five hundred out of you."

Mrs. Levitt's next communication would appear to have supported Barbara's suspicion, for Mr. Waddington was compelled to answer it thus:

"DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"You say you were 'right then' and that my 'promises' were 'conditional'"--

(You could tell where the inverted commas came by the biting clip of his tone.)

--"I fail to appreciate the point of this allusion. I cannot imagine what conditions you refer to. I made none. As for promises, I am not responsible for the somewhat restricted interpretation you see fit to put on a friend's general expressions of goodwill.

"Yours truly,

"HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON."

His last letter, a day later, never got as far as its signature.

"DEAR MADAM:

"My decision will not be affected by the contingency you suggest. You are at perfect liberty to say what you like. n.o.body will believe you."

"That, I think, is as far as I can go."

"Much too far," said Barbara.

"And that's taking her too seriously."

"Much. You mustn't send that letter."

"Why not?"

"Because it gives you away."

"Gives me away? It seems to me most guarded."

"It isn't. It implies that there _are_ things she might say. Even if you don't mind her saying them you mustn't put it in writing."

"Ah-h. There's something in that. Of course, I could threaten her with a lawyer's letter. But somehow--The fact is, Barbara, if you're a decent man you're handicapped in dealing with a lady. Delicacy. There are things that could be said. Material things--most material to the case. But I can't say them."

"No. You can't say them. But I can. I think I could stop the whole thing in five minutes, if I saw Mrs. Levitt. Will you leave it to me?"

"Come--I don't know--"

"Why not? I a.s.sure you it'll be all right."

"Well. Perhaps. It's a matter of business. A pure matter of business."

"It certainly is that. There's no reason why you shouldn't hand it over to your secretary."

He hesitated. He was still afraid of what Elise might say to Barbara.

"You will understand that she is in a very unbalanced state. Excitable.

A woman in that state is apt to put interpretations on the most innocent--er--acts."

"She won't be able to put on any after I've done with her. If it comes to that, I can put on interpretations too."