I should have been shutting it on Wallie Hine, too.

No, the only plan was to welcome them all, to play Parminter's game of showing the youth about town, and Barstow's game of crude flattery, and gradually, if possible, to dissociate him from his companions, before they had fleeced him altogether.

So you were let in, my dear, for that unfortunate evening.

Of course I was quite sure that you would not attribute to me designs upon Wallie Hine, otherwise I should have turned them all out at once." He spoke with a laugh, putting aside, as it were, a quite incredible suggestion.

But he looked at her sharply as he laughed.