"My goodness gracious!" gasped Natalie Lowndes. "Billy—wake up! Have you seen \'the Whisperer stuff\'?"

Billy woke up.

It was just after dinner, early yet to begin the real evening at the Grumblers (known to some outsiders as the "Plunderers") Club; and Lowndes had been killing time with a nap.

"Whisperer stuff?" he repeated, in a dazed, almost startled way; and when Billy looked startled he was not at his best. Some years ago he had been considered handsome: a big, athletic fellow with wavy auburn hair brushed back from a low forehead, reddish bronze skin, and big black eyes like those of his sister, Lady West. But the auburn hair had faded and thinned, growing far back on the forehead, which had now become unnaturally high. He was less athletic that he had been, because his principal exercise was taken indoors these days, and consisted of bridge and poker, poker and bridge, varied by roulette. His splendid muscular development was slowly degenerating into fat; and his large face was all red without the bronze. His eyes, too, had changed, and though still big had a goggling prominence that was not attractive. This was why he did not, when startled, look his best. The eyes goggled—his wife said to herself—like a pollywog\'s. And aloud she said to him: "Don\'t pretend not to know what I mean by \'Whisperer\' stuff."

"I was asleep," Lowndes excused himself, mildly.

"You don\'t need to tell me that by word of mouth," Natalie shrugged. "You\'ve been advertising the fact through another organ. Besides, you never can keep awake fifteen minutes after dinner if we\'re alone together. Not that it matters! ... What I asked was, have you seen \'the Whisperer stuff\' in this week\'s Inner Circle?"

"No," returned Lowndes. "Don\'t you know I never read the rag? I\'ve told you so pretty often."

"Everybody tells everybody else that they never read it. Yet I suppose it sells hundreds of thousand a week. My copy\'s just come in. Jane brought it—and you didn\'t hear her because you were snoring. I thought you might have seen it at the club before you left, and not said anything so as to make me speak first."

"Why, has the viper got in a dig against us?"

"Vipers don\'t dig. No, thanks to Heaven or the other thing, there\'s nothing on us. But it\'s all about someone you\'re just as much interested in—more interested than you are in me, anyhow. Juliet Claremanagh."

"Oh!" Billy sat up straight in his chair, though he did not seem to be as intensely excited as his wife had thought he would be. "Does the pig mention her by name?"

"The pig does not. He might as well, though, for everybody will know who\'s meant. By Jove, I wouldn\'t be Juliet to-night!"

"I believe you!" grunted Lowndes. But he did not believe her. He seldom did; and in this instance not at all, because he was sure she would give her eyes to be Juliet, just as sure as that he would give his to be Juliet\'s husband. "What\'s the racket this time?"

"I\'ll read the stuff aloud to you," said his wife; and began: "Let\'s Whisper!"

"That a certain foreign gentleman of title, with one of the prettiest and richest young wives in New York, is much to be sympathized with, because he has got a bad cold.

"But—he is to be congratulated on the marvellous medicine with which he is able to combat this ailment.

"Let\'s Whisper again!

"This medicine is worth its weight in gold. Only millionaires can afford to take it at home, and alone, as Louis of Bavaria used to take Wagner\'s operas.

"We know he was alone, because the pretty, rich young wife was out, full up with engagements for the whole afternoon. And we know he is a millionaire—oh, we know it in such a simple way! It\'s because his wife is a millionairess. See? The \'Whisperer\' thought you would!

"And now for the Medicine. That needs another whisper. Sh!

"We spell it with a capital M, because it has been a royal Medicine since Salome, the daughter of Herodias, administered it to King Herod. Dancing is a fine art, and its greatest exponent at present in our city is fair enough to cure any King (to say nothing of the lesser nobility) even if she did not dance for him. But of course, the \'Whisperer\' is sure she did dance, because with what other motive should she pay a call of consolation upon a nobleman with a cold, when his wife was not at home to nurse him? Can you think of any?

"Let\'s Whisper, that blade is very becoming to tall slender ladies with white skin and copper hair, even when they wear thick veils. Nothing suits them better, unless it\'s pale blue, and blue pearls. But ladies with golden hair have now taken to appearing in blue pearls—ropes of them. The \'Whisperer\' supposes they are real. Why, certainly! Could they be otherwise? Yet, on the other hand, are there two such ropes in the world? We shall see. We may see any day now! And the \'Whisperer\' hopes and prays that if we do see there won\'t be trouble. Both the ladies are so charming. Pearls are so compromising. And the gentleman is so popular.

"Let\'s Whisper: What a game of Consequences!"

"There!" Mrs. Lowndes finished with a gasp. "What do you think of that?"

"Can you beat it?" her husband answered with a question.

"I can\'t," said Natalie. "But I guess the Duke will beat something or someone. He\'ll have to."

"You mean the \'Whisperer!\' H\'m! Before you cook your hare, you\'ve got to catch him. A whole lot of men have tried to catch that one. But the Inner Circle still circulates."

Natalie brooded for a moment. When she was a girl, in a set that was conspicuous though not first rate, the "Whisperer" had whispered several nasty things about her. He, She, or It had said that she had come from "Peoria or somewhere" to New York to buy a husband, and had kindly warned her that persons not rich enough to pick and choose their goods had better snap up what they could get the first day of the sale, at the cheap bargain-counter. Since she had taken that advice and snapped up Billy Lowndes, the "Whisperer" had for some reason been silent; but Natalie had never forgiven or forgotten the attack on her attractions, and she had always burned to have some other victim arraigned for justifiable homicide.

"I bet Claremanagh will break the vicious Circle!" she said.

"And I bet he won\'t. Why should he bring off a stunt none of us ever brought? They say there\'s nothing to break. Some husband or father goes murder-mad, bursts into the Circle office, and finds no one on the premises but a little old lady. Can he bash that? Besides, why make a cap fit you by wearing it? Lord knows what that d—d \'Whisperer\'s\' working up to when he hints at the Claremanagh pearls being false. But if they are, the Duke must have sold them himself, and had a copy made—two copies, perhaps. By George, I shouldn\'t wonder if that\'s just what he did do!—sell—I mean, Juliet told my sister Emmy that Claremanagh refused the million or so she wanted to settle on him, and intended to join the working classes over here. He doesn\'t get a salary to be proud of, at the Phayre bank, I know for a fact. But I\'ve seen him playing poker at the Grumblers and—er—another game elsewhere. Last night he waltzed into the Grumblers after the opera, and I happened to see him pass a roll of yellow-backs as big as my fist into a man\'s hand. The other chap dropped the lot, by accident, and the noble Duke stood still with his nose in the air while they were collected. I saw a one thousand-dollar bill with my own eyes, and I have a hunch there were a heap more of the same sort."

"Who was the man?" Natalie asked, curiously.

"I\'ve forgotten his name," Billy evaded her. "There are a lot of new men in the club lately I know only by sight."

"Tell that to the marines!" she scoffed. "You\'ve got some reason for keeping his name dark. Did any one else see Claremanagh pay him the money? Because, if they did, I\'ll be sure to find out."

"I think everyone was pretty busy just then. I wouldn\'t have seen, if I hadn\'t been cutting out of a game at the moment. It\'s nothing to me who the man was. You\'re always so damned suspicious of anything I say."

Natalie shrugged her shoulders, a favourite gesture. "But not of what you do, I don\'t care enough," she retaliated, and picked up the Inner Circle again to re-read "the Whisperer stuff", while she richly pictured Juliet\'s feelings.

She didn\'t know the Duchess very well, but she thought that there would be "ructions."

"Pavoya must have been at the house while Juliet was lunching with me," she told herself. "I shouldn\'t wonder if the Duke had sold his pearls. Won\'t Juliet be wild if she finds out the wonderful rope everyone was talking about last night was false?"

Natalie grew so absorbed in settling just what she would write to Emmy West that she did not even speak to Billy when he went out. She was sure he was going to the "Plunderers," and she was right. Nevertheless, she had made one mistake about him. He had told the truth in saying that he did not know the name of the man to whom Claremanagh had handed a roll of notes. He did, however, wish to know, and as soon as possible. But he arrived to find everyone talking of "the \'Whisperer\' stuff" in the Inner Circle. Most of the men were defending the Duke, who had an extraordinary way of making himself liked without trying; and this vexed Lowndes. He had a grudge against Claremanagh for marrying Juliet Phayre, the only girl who bad ever given him a heartache. Losing her............