The Angel of Terror

Jean, who was carrying on a three-cornered conversation with her father and Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, did not stir, until she saw, by the light of a shaded lamp in the roof, the dark head of Mr. Marcus Stepney droop more confidently towards his companion. Then she rose and strolled across.

Marcus did not curse her because he did not express his inmost thoughts aloud.

He gave her his chair and pulled another forward.

"Does Miss Briggerland know?" asked Lydia.

"No," said Mr. Stepney pleasantly.

"May I tell her?"

"Of course."

"Mr. Stepney has been telling me about a wonderful racing coup to be made to-morrow. Isn't it rather thrilling, Jean? He says it will be quite possible for me to make five million francs without any risk at all."

"Except the risk of a million, I suppose," smiled Jean. "Well, are you going to do it?" Lydia shook her head.

"I haven't a million francs in France, for one thing," she said, "and I wouldn't risk it if I had."

And Jean smiled again at the discomfiture which Mr. Marcus Stepney strove manfully to hide.

Later she took his arm and led him into the garden.

"Marcus," she said when they were out of range of the house, "I think you are several kinds of a fool."

"Why?" asked the other, who was not in the best humour.

"It was so crude," she said scornfully, "so cheap and confidence-trickish. A miserable million francs--twenty thousand pounds. Apart from the fact that your name would be mud in London if it were known that you had robbed a girl----"

"There's no question of robbery," he said hotly, "I tell you Valdau is a certainty for the Prix."

"It would not be a certainty if her money were on," said Jean dryly. "It would finish an artistic second and you would be full of apologies, and poor Lydia would be a million francs to the bad. No, Marcus, that is cheap."

"I'm nearly broke," he said shortly.

He made no disguise of his profession, nor of his nefarious plan.

Between the two there was a queer kind of camaraderie. Though he may not have been privy to the more tremendous of her crimes, yet he seemed to accept her as one of those who lived on the frontiers of illegality.

"I was thinking about you, as you sat there telling her the story," said Jean thoughtfully. "Marcus, why don't you marry her?"