roof."
"Madame Alpenny?"
"Yes! She's quite a character with her jewellery and her gambling. By the way, you won't find her so decked out Hindoo fashion as hitherto. During the week of my stay here, I have won two bracelets, several rings and a pair of ear-rings."
Hench looked displeased. "You shouldn't encourage her love of gambling," he said strongly. "I'm not a saint, but it doesn't seem right for a well-to-do man such as you are to win Madame Alpenny's jewellery."
"Why not? She has the same chance of winning my money. We play quite fairly, you know, Hench, and one must pass the time somehow. But I quite understand why you don't wish me to loot the lady."
"Oh, do you." Hench grew red and smoothed his beard. "Well?"
"I have listened and looked and questioned and considered while I have been here," explained the Nut coolly, "and by doing so I have found out your romance."
"My romance!"--the big man bit his nether lip and thought that it was like the cheek of this finicky little devil to meddle with what did not in any way concern him--"what the deuce are you talking about?"
"About your romance; about Bracken's romance; and about Mademoiselle Zara, who is the subject of both romances."
"You are talking through your hat, Spruce."
"By no means. I can give you chapter and verse for my surmises. Zara Alpenny is a handsome gipsy, although to my fancy she is a trifle gaunt and fierce, as any one can see. Her mother being poor, intends that her daughter shall be the wife of a wealthy man. You have fallen in love with this divinity of the Bijou Music-hall, and so has that bounder of a violinist. Madame Alpenny, knowing your circumstances, will have nothing to do with either of you as sons-in-law, preferring yours truly."
"You!" Hench sat up and stared indignantly at the smooth speaker. "Now what the dickens do you mean by that rubbish?"
"What I say. You understand King's English, I take it. But you need have no fear so far as I am concerned. Mademoiselle Zara is not my sort, and I have no intention of forwarding Madame Alpenny's matrimonial aims. But you----"
Hench rose, looking considerably irritated. "I wish you would mind your own business," he said sharply. "You have found a mare's nest."
"Oh, well," observed Spruce lazily, "if that is the case I may as well change my mind and become a suitor for Zara's hand."
"You shall do nothing of the sort."
"Why not? You don't love her, if I am to credit your mare's nest parable."
Hench found that the Nut was too sharp for him and sat down with a defeated air. "I admire the girl, rather than love her," he admitted reluctantly. "She's a good sort and would make a good wife--something of a comrade, you know."
"I don't think that fierce-eyed girl would care for a marriage of the comrade sort, Hench. She wants love of the most pronounced and romantic kind, and that kind she is getting from Bracken. He worships her, and will carry off the prize if all you can give is cautious admiration."
"It's none of your business, anyway," fumed the big man.
"No. I admit that! But suppose I make it my business by asking Madame Alpenny for her daughter's hand. She believes me to be rich and----"
"And you are not. Come, be honest."
Spruce saw that he had overshot the mark and retreated dexterously. "I have already been honest, as I told you that I was not a millionaire but only well off. Anyhow, I am a better husband for Zara so far as money is concerned than you or that bounder."
"But hang it, man, you can't love her. You've only known her a week."
"I never said that I did love her, or could possibly come to love her. Still, Zara is handsome and clever, so why shouldn't I make her my comrade-wife, since you suggested the same kind of half-baked alliance with yourself."
"Look here, Spruce," stated the other very seriously, and irritated by the nimble wit of his schoolfellow, "you have proved yourself to be a decent sort by offering to help me. For that offer I thank you, and because of it I am willing that we should be friends. But if you make love to Zara we are sure to quarrel."
"Aren't you rather a dog-in-the-manger, Hench?"
"No. I admire the girl."
"She wants love, which you evidently can't give her," retorted Spruce in an emphatic manner. "Now, if I can love her----"
"You said that she wasn't your sort."
"She isn't. Still, she is handsome, and one might pick up a worse wife."
"But not a worse mother-in-law. So far as I am concerned it doesn't matter, as I have neither kith nor kin to my knowledge, and, moreover, I am a vagabond upon the face of the earth. But with your family connections and position and money, the marriage would not be a success, seeing that it entails your taking Madame Alpenny to the West End. There she would scarcely do you credit."
Spruce rocked with laughter, and wondered what Hench would say if he knew the true position of affairs which had been so carefully withheld from him. "I give in, old fellow," he said, wiping his eyes with a mauve silk handkerchief and wafting a perfume about the room. "I was only codding you. I don't want to marry the girl. But Bracken does."
"And so do I," rejoined Hench tartly.
"H'm! I'm not so sure of that. Yours is a cold-blooded wooing. The girl asks you for the bread of love and you give her the stone of admiration."
"She doesn't ask me for love," said the tall young man with a sigh. "I am not so blind but what I can see that she loves Bracken."
"Then why don't you sheer off?"
"I don't like any man to get the better of me."
"There speaks the buccaneer, the cave-man, the prehistoric grabber. Lord! what a weird state of things, and how simple you are, Hench, to place all your cards on the table. I can teach you a thing or two."
"I am quite sure you can," said Hench dryly, and disliking the wit of this effeminate little creature, which was so extremely keen; "but I go my own way, thank you, and dree my own weird. It is probable that I will ask Madame Alpenny if I can marry Zara, and if Zara is agreeable----"
"Which by your own showing she won't be," put in Spruce parenthetically.
"----I'll marry her. If not, I'll go away and let Bracken make her his wife."
Spruce rose with a yawn. "I fancy Madame Alpenny will have a word or two to say to that, my dear fellow. Why don't you skip now?"
"Because I admire Zara and mean to give her the chance of accepting or rejecting me," said Hench doggedly. "Also, I can't leave London for a few weeks, as I have to interview my father's lawyers."
"What about?"
"I can't tell you. My father left certain papers with his lawyers which were to be given to me when I attained the age of twenty-five. My birthday arrives shortly, and then I'll see what is to be done."
"It
