'A young fellow who has made himself somewhat notorious in the
Royalist cause--a cause in which I admit I have no sympathy. His
name is Conyngham.'

Then a silence fell upon the two men, and over raised glasses they
glanced surreptitiously at each other.

'I know him,' said Sir John at length, and the tone of his voice
made Larralde glance up with a sudden gleam in his eyes. There thus
sprang into existence between them the closest of all bonds--a
common foe.

'The man has done me more than one ill-turn,' said Larralde after a
pause, and he drummed on the table with his cigarette-stained
fingers.

Sir John, looking at him, coldly gauged the Spaniard with the deadly
skill of his calling. He noted that Larralde was poor and
ambitious--qualities that often raise the devil in a human heart
when fate brings them there together. He was not deceived by the
picturesque manner of Julia's lover, but knew exactly how much was
assumed of that air of simple vanity to which Larralde usually
treated strangers. He probably gauged at one glance the depth of
the man's power for good or ill, his sincerity, his possible
usefulness. In the hands of Sir John Pleydell, Larralde was the
merest tool.

They sat until long after midnight, and before they parted Sir John
Pleydell handed to his companion a roll of notes, which he counted
carefully and Larralde accepted with a grand air of condescension