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interjected. "Now the point is, he's being given rope. The open point is, just how much more rope we can afford to pay out to him? There's one argument for leaving him where he is, up to what he's up to, till we've got his contacts; there's one very big thing we're after compared to which your friend's small fry. He's watched--as a matter of fact, I'm watching him. He repays watching--as I told you, I've got to like the chap; I'd be in a way sorry to have things happen to. him. But they might, I must tell you frankly--because here, you see, we come to the other argument, in favour of pulling him in right now. He's not doing half he hopes, but he's doing _some__ damage. In that case, we'd put ourselves back as to the other thing. However, some do say, pull him in double quick, stop _that__ rot, cut our losses.... For my own part, I'm keeping an open mind." "And this open mind of yours, is it so important?" He said modestly: "Well, you might say it is. Just as things are now, I could tip the scales either way. The thing _could__ just turn on the stuff on him I send up. As to that, if you follow me, I do use my judgement. I _could__ use my judgement a bit more.... I am, for instance, holding quite a bit of stuff on him that I haven't turned in yet. It ought to go in--I can't quite make my mind up. Perhaps you could help me to?" She looked at him and began to laugh. "I _could__ leave things over," he went on, with the air of one intensely pursuing an inner argument, "for quite a time. In that case who knows what might not have happened--this whole show might be over; he might for some reason think better of it and drop this little game of his of his own accord; he might just somehow be lucky. There's no saying. Anyhow, it's a hope--if he _could__ be kept out of trouble a bit longer. And when I say that rather depends on me, what I feel is, it rather depends on you." "Yes, I quite see." He said with relief: "You do?" "Perfectly. I'm to form a disagreeable association in order that a man be left free to go on selling his coun-try." "That's putting it a bit crudely," Harrison said, downcast. "It might matter more how one put it if we'd been for a moment talking about the same man. Evidently I have been right--you _are__ crazy. When did you think this up?" He said dubiously: "It doesn't make sense to you?" "I'm afraid not." "Now, why?" "Well, first and last, I suppose, because _you__ don't make sense: you never have. Quite apart from Robert and everything in the world that I know of him, there are people one simply does not believe, and you are one of them." "Well, I don't know..." he said. "What don't you know?" "Quite how to make you see. I can't give you any proof--I'm in deep enough already, having said what I have." "Exactly--yes!" she exclaimed. "That would be another thing, if one needed anything more. If this story were for one instant true, if you for one instant were what you hint you are, would you tell _me__, me of all people, knowing I'd go with the whole thing straight to Robert? Of course I'll anyhow tell him, simply as something comic. What else would you expect?" She threw the words in his face, which reacted as though to a light if insulting buffet from a balloon--it remained stony, certain and, in a way to detest but not to discount, mature. He said: "Expect? I'd have expected the sort of person you are to have a better head. Warn him? That would be a pity--but not for me. Once known to have been put wise, he's no more use to us, so then he _does__ get pulled in. No, speaking as the chap's friend I should certainly not do that." "So, I take this from you, ask no more questions, break with Robert?" "That would be best for him." "Yes, but wait a minute--'known to have been put wise'? Who is to know--still more, how would anyone know?" "I should have thought _that__ stuck out a mile. You expect him to laugh this off, or, should we say," he said with an almost delicate air, "kiss it off, when and if you bring the matter