garding him steadily beneath level brows. Then she said with an odd laugh: "You have your own way of putting one on honour!"
"I don't need to—with you."
She analyzed this with gathering perplexity. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, I don't need to put you on your honour—because I'm sure of you. Even were I not, still I'd refrain from exacting any pledge, or attempting to." He paused and shrugged before continuing: "If I thought you were still to be distrusted, Miss Bannon, I'd say: 'There's a free door; go when you like, back to the Pack, turn in your report, and let them act as they see fit.'… Do you think I care for them? Do you imagine for one instant that I fear any one—or all—of that gang?"
"That rings suspiciously of egoism!"
"Let it," he retorted. "It's pride of caste, if you must know. I hold myself a grade better than such cattle; I've intelligence, at least. … I can take care of myself!"
If he might read her countenance, it expressed more than anything else distress and disappointment.
"Why do you boast like this—to me?"
"Less through self-satisfaction than in contempt for a pack of murderous mongrels—impatience that I have to consider such creatures as Popinot, Wertheimer, De Morbihan and—all their crew."
"And Bannon," she corrected calmly—"you meant to say!"
"Wel-l—" he stammered, discountenanced.
"It doesn't matter," she assured him. "I quite under-
