"You were just an unhappy boy," she said, as if thinking aloud, "with all life before you and many friends to back you up."

"And you," he suggested, "are just an unhappy girl with all life before you. I don't know anything about your friends, but I'll wager you've got a lot of them."

She shook her head.

"Not one," she said, slowly. "I mean, not one I dare to call on, now."

"I like that! You've got me to call on, right here."

This time she really smiled at him. It was a pathetic little smile, but both lips and eyes took part in it. He waited, but she said no more. He began to fear that his confidence had been given to no purpose. Evidently she had no intention of making a confession in return. He resumed his attack from a new angle.

"You've been disappointed in something or some one," he said. "Oh," as she made a gesture, "don't think I'm belittling it! I know it was something big. But the finish you chose wasn't meant to be, or it would have come off. You see that, don't you? The very sun in its course took pains to show you to me in time to stop it. That means something, Miss Mayo."

She seemed slightly startled.

"It is Miss Mayo, isn't it? That's the name the elevator boy gave me, yesterday."

"It will do." She spoke absently, already on the trail of another thought. Suddenly she caught it.

"Then you brought the basket, or sent it?" she cried. "It was you! How dared you!"

She had half risen from her chair. Bending across the table, he gently pushed her back into it.

"Sit down," he said, imperturbably.

She hesitated, and he repeated the command, this time almost curtly. Under the new tone she obeyed.

"I'm going to tell you something," he went on. "I've exhausted my slender resources of experience and tact. I don't know what any one else would do in this situation; but I do know what I'm going to do myself. And, what is a lot more important, I know what you're going to do."

She laughed, and he winced at the sound.

"That's easy," she said. "I'm going to finish the act you interrupted."

"Oh, no, you're not!"

Her lips set.

"Do you imagine you can prevent me?"

"I know I can."

His quiet assurance impressed her.

"How?" she asked, half mockingly.

"Very easily. I can take you from this restaurant to the nearest police station, and have you locked up for attempted suicide. You know, it's a crime here."

The word they had both avoided was out at last. Although he had spoken it very softly, its echoes seemed to fill the big room. She shrank back and stared at him, her hands clutching the sides of her chair.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Wouldn't I? I'll do it in exactly fifteen minutes, unless you give me your word that you will never make another attempt of the kind." He took his watch out of his pocket and laid it on the table between them. "It's exactly quarter-past twelve," he said. "At half-past—"

"Oh!—and I thought you were kind!"

There was horror in the brown eyes now and an antagonism that hurt him.

"Would it be kinder to let you go back to that studio and—"

She interrupted.

"How dare you interfere in my affairs! Who gave you the right?"

"Fate gave me the right. I'm its chosen specialist on the job, and you may take my word for it, my dear girl, the job's going to be done, and done up brown."

He lit a fresh cigarette.

"It will be mighty unpleasant for you," he went on, thoughtfully. "There's the publicity, you know. Of course, all the newspapers will have your pictures—"

"Oh!"

"And a lot of romantic stories—"

"Oh—you—you—"

"But of course you can avoid all that," he reminded her, "by giving me your promise."

She choked back her rising fury, and made an obvious effort at self-control.

"If I agree to these terms of yours," she asked, between her teeth, "may I be sure that you will leave me in peace and that I shall not see you again?"

He looked at her reproachfully.

"Dear me, no! Why, you'll have to see me every day. I've got to look after you for a while." At her expression his tone changed. "You see," he said, with smiling seriousness, "you have shown that just for the present you can't be trusted to guide your own actions. So I'm going to 'stick around,' and guide them for a few days, until I am sure you are yourself again!"

"This—" again she choked on the words—"this is intolerable!"

"Oh, I don't think so. You can see for yourself that I mean well, and that I'm going to be a harmless sort of watch-dog. Also, you can depend on me to go off duty as soon as it's safe. But for the present you're going to have a guardian; and it's up to you to decide whether that guardian shall be Laurence Devon, very much at your service, or the police force of the city of New York."

She had her chin in her hands now, in her characteristic pose, and was regarding him without resentment. When she finally spoke, it was without resentment, too, but coldly, as one states an unpalatable fact.

"You," she said, "are a fool."

Laurie flushed, then smiled.

"That is not a new theory," he admitted.

"Two hours ago," she said, "I warned you that it would be dangerous for you to interfere in my affairs. Did I not?"

"You did."

"I warn you again. It may be a matter of life or death. Put your watch in your pocket, pay your bill, and take me home. Then go away and forget me."

Laurie glanced at the watch.

"We have used up eight minutes since I gave you your choice," he reminded her.

"You are like a child," she muttered, "spinning his top over a powder-magazine."

Laurie frowned a little.

"Too melodramatic," he murmured.

"I tell you," she said fiercely, "you are acting like a fool! If you interfere with me you will be drawn into all sorts of trouble, perhaps into tragedy, perhaps even into disgrace."

"You're forgetting the net," he reminded her, "the nice net you mentioned this morning, with room for two. Also—" again he looked at the watch—"you're overlooking the value of time. See how fast these little hands are moving. The nearest police station is only two blocks away. Unless you give me that promise, you will be in it in—" he made a calculation—"in just about four minutes."

She seemed to come to a decision.

"Listen to me," she said, rapidly. "I cannot be frank with you—"

"I've noticed that," Laurie interpolated, "with regret."

She ignored the interruption.

"But I can tell you this much. I am not alone in my—trouble. Others are involved. They are—desperate. It is because of them that I—you understand?"

Laurie shook his head. He did not understand, at all; but vague and unpleasant memories of newspaper stories about espionage and foreign spies suddenly filtered through his mind.

"It sounds an awful mess," he said frankly. "If it's got anything to do with German propaganda—"

She interrupted with a gesture of impatience.

"No, no!" she cried. "I am not a German or a propagandist, or a pacifist or a spy. That much, at least, I can tell you."

"Then that's all right!" Laurie glanced at his watch again. "If you had been a German spy," he added, "with a little round knob of hair on the back of your head and bombs in every pocket, I couldn't have had much to do with you, I really couldn't. But as you and your companions are not involved in that kind of thing, I am forced to remind you that you'll be headed toward the station in just one minute."

"I hate you!" she said between her teeth.

He shook his head at her. "Oh, no, you don't!" he said kindly. "But I see plainly that you're a self-willed young person. Association with me, and the study of my poise, will do a lot for you. By the way, you have only thirty seconds left."

"Do you want to be killed?"

She hissed the words at him.

"Good gracious, no!" Laurie spoke absently, his eyes on the watch. "Twenty seconds," he ended.

"Do you want to be maimed or crippled, or—or kidnapped?"

He looked up in surprise.

"I don't know why you imagine I have such lurid tastes," he said, discontentedly. "Of course I don't want any of those things. My nature is a quiet one, and already I'm dreading the excitement of taking you to the station. But now I must ask you to put on your gloves and button up your coat for our little journey."

"The journey you make with me," she said, with deep meaning, "may be a long and hard one."

He stood up.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he told her. "But we'll have to postpone it. Our journey to the station comes first."

She sat still, looking at him.

"I know your type now," she said suddenly. "You live in your little groove, and you think that nothing happens in the world except what you see under your nose."

"Something awfully unpleasant is going to happen under my nose right now," announced her companion, disconsolately. "Come along, please. It's time to start."

She stood up, faced him for a second, and then dropped back into her chair with a gesture of finality. Her expression had changed back to the lethargy of her first moments in the restaurant.

"Very well," she said. "Have it your way." She added significantly, "This may be the last time you have your way about anything!"

"You have a depressing outlook," grumbled Laurie, contentedly sitting down again. "It isn't playing the game to spoil my triumph with such predictions as that, especially as I'm going to have my way about a lot of things right now. I have your word," he added.

"Yes."

"Good! Now I'll give you my program. First of all, I'm going to be a brother to you; and I don't think," he ended thoughtfully, "that I've ever offered to be a brother to any girl before."

"You're a nice boy," she said abruptly.

He smiled at her.

"A nice boy, though a fool. I hoped you would notice that. You'll be dazzled by my virtues before you're through with me." He went on conversationally: "The reason I've never offered to be a brother to any girl before is that I've got a perfectly good sister of my own. Her one fault is that she's always bossed me. I warn you from the start of our relations that I'm going to be the boss. It will be the first time I've ever bossed any one, and I'm looking forward to it a lot."

The faintest suggestion of a smile touched her short upper lip. Above it, her red-brown eyes had softened again. She drew a deep breath.

"It's strange," she said. "You've let me in for all sorts of things you don't realize. And yet, somehow, I feel, for the time at least, as if I had been lying under the weight of the world and some one had lifted the wretched thing off me."

"Can't you, by a supreme effort of the imagination, fancy that I lifted it off?" suggested Laurie, mildly.

This time she really smiled.

"I can," she conceded. "And without any effort at all," she added somberly, "I can fancy us both under it again."

He shook his head.

"That won't do!" he declared. "The lid is off. You've just admitted it. You feel better for having it off. So do I. As your big brother, and self-appointed counselor, I choose this opportunity to tell you what you're going to do."

She pursed her lips at him. It was the gesture of a rebellious child. Her entire manner had changed so suddenly that Laurie felt a bewilderment almost equal to his satisfaction in it. For the first time throughout the interview he experienced the thrill she had given him in the mirror.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"In the first place—" He hesitated. The ground that stretched between them now was firmer, but still uncertain. One false step might lose him much of what he had gained. "There's the question of your future," he went on, in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone. "I spent two months last year looking for a job in New York. I was about down to my last cent before I found it. It occurred to me that, perhaps, you—" He was beginning to flounder.

"That I am out of work?" she finished, calmly. "You are right."

Laurie beamed at her. Surely his way was clear now!

"I had a streak of luck last year," he resumed. "I collaborated on a play that people were foolish enough to like. Ever since that, money has poured in on me in the most vulgar way. I clink when I walk. Dollars ooze from my pockets when I make a gesture. Last week, at the bank, the cashier begged me to take some of my money away and do something with it. He said it was burdening the institution. So, as your adopted brother, I'm going to start a bank-account for you," he ended, simply.

"Indeed you are not!"

"Indeed I am!"

"I agreed to live. I did not agree to—what is it you Americans say?—to sponge!"

He ignored all but one phrase of the reply.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded with quickened interest. "Aren't you an American?"

She bit her lip.

"N-o—not wholly."

"What, then?"

She hesitated.

"I can't tell you that just yet," she said at last.

"Oh-h!" Laurie pursed his lips in a noiseless whistle. The girl's voice was musically English, and though her accent was that of London, up till now she had spoken as colloquially as any American. Indeed, her speech was much like his sister's. He was puzzled.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"That I am not wholly American?" She was smiling at him ironically, but he remained serious.

"Yes. And—oh, a lot of things! Of course you know I am all at sea about you."

The familiar shadow fell over her face.

"When one is within an hour or two of the next world," she asked indifferently, "why should one tell anybody anything?"

"How long have you been in America?"

"All my life, off and on."

This at least was reassuring. He imagined he saw a gleam of light. The girl had declared that she was not a spy, nor involved in war propaganda; but it was quite possible, he reasoned, that she was enmeshed in some little web of politics, of vast importance to her and her group, of very little importance to any one else.

"I suppose," he suggested cheerfully, "that net you've said so much about is a political net?"

They had been speaking throughout in low tones, inaudible at any other table. Their nearest fellow diners were two middle-aged women at least thirty feet away. But she started violently under his words. She made a quick gesture of caution, and, turning half-around, swept the room with a frightened glance. Laurie, his cigarette forgotten in his fingers, watched her curiously, taking in her evident tension, her slowly returning poise, and at last the little breath of relief with which she turned back to him.

"I wish I could tell you all you want to know," she said, "but—I can't. That's all there is to it. So please let us change the subject."

His assurance returned.

"You're not a crowned head or an escaped princess or anything of that kind, are you?" he asked politely.

This time she really laughed, a soft, low gurgle of laughter, joyous and contagious.

"No."

"Then let's get back to our bank-account. We have plenty of time to run over to the Fifth Avenue branch of the Corn Exchange Bank before the closing-hour. What color of check-book do you prefer?"

"I told you," she declared with sudden seriousness, "that my bargain did not include sponging."

For the first time in the somewhat taxing interview her companion's good humor deserted him.

"My dear girl," he said, almost impatiently, "don't beat the devil around the bush! You've got to live till we can find the right work for you, and that may take some time. You have intelligence enough to see that I'm neither a gay Lothario nor a Don Juan. In your present state of mind you're not fit to decide anything. Make up your mind, once for all, that I'm going to decide for you. It will save us both some trouble."

He stopped. He had discovered that she was not listening to him. She was sitting absolutely still, her head a little turned. Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes, wide and staring, were fixed on some one across the room.

Laurie's eyes followed hers. They focused on a man sitting alone at a little table. It was clear that he had just entered, for a waiter stood by his side, and the new-comer was giving judicious attention to the bill of fare.

He was a harmless-looking person, of medium height and rather more than medium stoutness, carelessly dressed in a blue-serge suit. His indifference to dress was further betrayed by the fact that his ready-made black four-in-hand tie had slipped the mooring of a white bone stud, leaving that useful adjunct of the toilet open to the eyes of the world. His face was round, smooth-shaven, and rather pale. He had dark brown hair, surprisingly sleek, and projecting, slightly veiled gray eyes, which blinked near-sightedly at the menu. Altogether he was a seemingly worthy person, to whom the casual observer would hardly have given a second glance.

While the two pairs of eyes across the room stared at him, he confided his order to the waiter. It seemed a brief order, for the brow of the latter clouded as he wrote it down and detachedly strolled off. The new-comer leaned back in his chair, and, as he did so, glanced around the room. His projecting eyes, moving indifferently from table to table, suddenly rested, fixed, on the girl. They showed interest but no surprise. He bowed with a half-smile—an odd smile, bland, tolerant, and understanding. Then, disregarding her lack of response, he fixed his eyes on the wall facing him and waited patiently for his luncheon to be served.

Laurie's attention returned to the girl. She was facing him again, but her eyes looked past him as if he were not there.

"He has found me, even here," she muttered. "Of course he would. He always does."

Laurie looked at her.

"Do you mean," he asked crisply, "that that chap across the room is following you around?"

She looked at him, as if abruptly recalled to the fact of his presence. Her eyes dropped.

"Yes," she muttered, dully. "I may escape him for a time, but he always learns where I am. He will catch me when he chooses, and roll me about under his paws for a while, and then—perhaps—let me go again."

"That sounds like a certain phase of domestic life," commented Laurie. "Is he by any chance your husband?"

Her eyes held a rising anger.

"He is not," she said. "I am not married."

Laurie dropped his dead cigarette into the ash tray, and rose with a sigh.

"It's all very confusing," he admitted, "and a digression from the main issue. But I'm afraid I shall have to go to the exertion of reasoning with him."

She started up, but before she could protest or restrain him, he had left her and crossed the room to the stranger's table.



CHAPTER V

MR. HERBERT RANSOME SHAW

The man in the shabby blue-serge suit detached his absent gaze from the opposite wall, and looked up quickly when Laurie stopped at his side. He was clearly surprised, but courteous. He half rose from his chair, but the new-comer waved him back and dropped easily into the vacant seat opposite him. He was smiling. The man in blue serge was not. He looked puzzled, though vaguely responsive. A third person, watching the two, might almost have thought the episode the casual reunion of men who frequently lunched together.

Laurie leaned forward in his chair, rested one elbow on the table, and, opening his cigarette-case, extended it to the stranger. The latter rejected it with a slight bow.

"Thank you, but not before lunch," he said, quietly. His voice and manner were those of an educated man. The quality of his tone was slightly harsh.

Laurie lit a cigarette, blew out the match, and looked straight into the stranger's projecting gray eyes. He had acted impulsively. Now that he was here, he was anxious to put the job over concisely, firmly, but, above all, neatly. There must be nothing done that would attract the attention of the few persons in the big room.

"I came over here," he said casually, "to mention to you that you are annoying the lady I am with. I want to mention also that the annoyance must stop."

The glance of the stranger held. Laurie observed with interest that the veiled look of the projecting eyes had changed a little. The change did not add to the stranger's charm.

"Before I answer you, tell me one thing," he said, formally. "By what right do you act as the lady's protector?"

Laurie hesitated an instant. The question was embarrassing.

"Has she authorized you to act?"

"In a way, but—"

"How long have you known her? How well do you know her?"

Command of the interview was slipping from the younger man. He resolutely resumed it.

"Look here," he said, firmly, "I came to this table to tell you something, but I will decide what that is to be. I am not here to answer questions. It is enough for you to know that circumstances have given me the right to protect the lady from annoyance. I want to make it clear to you that I shall exercise that right. Hereafter you are to let her alone. Do you understand? Absolutely alone. You are not to follow her, not to enter places where she is, not to bow to her, nor to be where she can see you," he recklessly ended.

The stranger looked at him through the light veil which seemed again to have fallen over the projecting eyes.

"I should really like to know," he said, "when and where you met her. I saw you starting off together in the taxicab, but I am not quite sure whether your first encounter occurred this morning."

"And you won't be." Laurie stood up. "I've warned you," he said curtly. "I don't know how well you understand our laws in this country, but I fancy you know enough of them to realize that you cannot shadow a lady without getting into trouble."

"She admitted that?" The stranger appeared to experience a tepid glow of emotion. "She must know you better than I thought," he added reflectively. "Doris is not the type to pour her confidence into every new ear," he mused, seeming to forget the other's presence in his interest in this revelation.

"Have I made myself quite clear?"

Laurie was staring at him with a mingling of resentment and interest. The other nodded.

"You have, my young friend," he said, with sudden seriousness, "and now I, too, will be clear. In return for one warning, I will give you another. Keep out of matters that do not concern you."

Laurie grinned at him.

"You forget that I have made this matter my concern," he said, lightly. "Try to remember that."

The other man rose. His manner had changed to a sort of impatient weariness.

"Get her out of here," he said abruptly. "You are beginning to irritate me, you two. Take her home, and then keep away from her, unless you are looking for trouble."

He delivered the last words so clearly and menacingly that the waiter who had appeared with his luncheon heard them and fell back a step. Looking into the veiled eyes, Laurie also felt a sense of recoil. The fellow was positively venomous. There was something serpentlike in the dull but fixed look of those goggling eyes, in the forward thrust of the smooth brown head.

"I've said my say," he retorted. "If I ever catch you around that studio, or in any way annoying the lady, I'll thrash you within an inch of your life; and then I'll turn what's left of you over to the authorities. Understand?"

He nodded and strolled back to Miss Mayo's table. For an instant the other man stood looking after him, as if tempted to follow. Then, with a shrug, he dropped into his chair and began the luncheon the waiter had placed before him.

Laurie found the girl standing by the table, ready for the street, her coat fastened, her gloves buttoned.

"Oh, how could you!" she gasped. "What did he say?"

Laurie summoned the waiter with a gesture and asked for his account.

"Sit down a minute," he suggested, "and tell me who he is."

"Not here," she urged. "I couldn't breathe here. Hurry, please. Let us get away!"

She was so obviously in earnest that he yielded. He paid the bill, which the waiter had ready, accepted that appreciative servitor's help with his overcoat, and escorted his guest from the room.

"But, for heaven's sake, don't run!" he laughed. "Do you want the creature to think we're flying before him?"

She flushed and moderated her pace. Side by side, and quite deliberately, they left the restaurant, while the stranger watched them with his dull, fixed gaze. He seemed to have recovered his temper, but it was also plain that the little encounter had given him something to think about. When he resumed his luncheon he ate slowly and with an air of deep abstraction, as if working out some grave problem.

"What's his name?" asked Laurie, as he helped Miss Mayo into a waiting taxicab.

She looked startled. Indeed, his most casual questions seemed to startle her and put her, in a way, on her guard.

"Shaw," she answered, unwillingly.

"Is it spelled P-s-h-a-w?"

Laurie asked the question with polite interest. Then, realizing that in her preoccupation she did not follow this flight of his mercurial spirits, he sobered. "It's a perfectly good name," he conceded, "but there must be more of it. What's the rest?"

"He calls himself Herbert Ransome Shaw."

Laurie made a mental note of the name.

"I shall call him Bertie," he firmly announced, "to show you how unimportant he really is. By the way,"—a sudden memory struck him—"he told me your name—Doris."

He added the name so simply that he seemed to be calling her by it. A faint shadow of her elusive smile touched her lips.

"I like it—Doris," Laurie repeated, dreamily.

"I am so glad," she murmured.

He ignored the irony in her tone.

"I suppose you have several more, like our friend Bertie, but you needn't tell them to me. If I had to use them every time I spoke to you, it might check my inspiration. Doris will do very nicely. Doris, Doris!"

"Are you making a song of it?"

"Yes, a hymn."

She looked at him curiously.

"You're a queer boy. I can't quite make you out. One minute you're serious, and the next—"

"If you're puzzled over me, picture my mental turmoil over you."

"Oh—me?" With a gesture she consigned herself to the uttermost ends of the universe.

The taxicab had stopped. They had reached the studio building without observing the fact. The expression on the features of the chauffeur suggested that if they wanted to sit still all day they could do it, but that it would not be his personal choice. Doris held out her hand.

"Good-by," she said gently. "And thank you. I'm really more—appreciative—than I seem."

Laurie's look expressed more surprise than he had ever really experienced over anything.

"But we haven't settled matters!" he cried. "We're going to the bank—"

"We are not."

She spoke with sharp decision. Then, relenting at the expression of his face, she touched the heavy gold-and-amber chain around her neck.

"I can pawn this," she said briefly. "It didn't seem worth while before, but as I've got to go on, I promise you I will do it. I will do it to-day," she added hurriedly, "this afternoon, if you wish. It is valuable. I can get enough on it to keep me for a month."

"Till we find that job for you," he suggested, brightening.

She agreed, with a momentary flash of her wonderful smile.

"And you will let me drop in this evening and take you to dinner?"

"No, thank you. But—" again she relented—"you may come in for an hour at eight."

"I believe you are a crowned head," murmured Laurie, discontentedly. "That's just the way they do in books. When I come I suppose I must speak only when I'm spoken to. And when you suddenly stand up at nine, I'll know the audience is over."

She laughed softly, her red-brown eyes shining at him. Her laughter was different from any other laughter he had ever heard.

"Good-by," she repeated.

He helped her out of the cab and escorted her into the studio building, where he rang the elevator bell and waited, hat in hand, until the car came down. When it arrived, Sam was in it. Before it stopped he had recognized the waiting pair through the open ironwork of the door. To Laurie, the elevator and Sam's jaw seemed to drop in unison.

The next instant the black boy had resumed his habitual expression of indifference to all human interests. Dead-eyed, he stared past the two young things. Dead-eared, he ignored their moving lips. But there was fellowship in the jocund youth of all three. In an instant when Laurie stepped back into the hall as the car shot upward, the eyes of negro and white man flashed a question and an answer:

In Sam's: "You done took her out an' fed her?"

In Laurie's: "You bet your boots I did!"



CHAPTER VI

LAURIE SOLVES A PROBLEM

Laurie walked across the square to his own rooms. A sudden gloom had fallen upon him. He saw himself sitting in his study, gazing remotely at his shoes, until it was time to dress for the evening and his formal call on Doris.

The prospect was not attractive. He hoped Bangs would be at home. If so, perhaps he could goad him into one of the rages in which Bangs was so picturesque; but he was not sure of even this mild diversion. Rodney had been wonderfully sweet-tempered the past three days, though preoccupied, as if in the early stages of creative art. Laurie half suspected that he had begun work on his play. The suspicion aroused conflicting emotions of relief and half-jealous regret. Why couldn't the fellow wait till they could go at it together? He ignored the fact that already the fellow had waited six weeks.

Bangs was not at home. The square, flat-topped mahogany desk at which the two young men worked together blinked up at Laurie with the undimmed luster of a fine piece of furniture on which the polisher alone had labored that morning. Without taking the trouble to remove his hat and coat, Laurie dropped into a chair and tried to think things out. But the process of thinking eluded him, or, rather, his mind shied at it as a skittish horse might shy if confronted on a dark road with shapes vaguely familiar yet mysterious.

Frankly, he couldn't make head or tail of this mess Doris seemed to be in. His memory reminded him that such "messes" existed. He had heard and read of all sorts of plots and counter-plots, in which all types of humans figured. His imagination underscored the memory. But, someway, Doris—he loved to repeat the name even to himself—someway Doris was not the type that figured in such plots.

Also, there were other things hard to understand. She had let herself starve for four days, though she wore around her neck a chain that she admitted represented a month's support. And this fellow, Herbert Ransome Shaw—where the devil did he come in? A fellow with a name like that and with snaky eyes like his was capable of anything. And yet—

Young Devon had the intolerance of American youth for the things outside his personal experience. The sort of thing Doris was hinting at didn't happen here; that was all there was to it. What was happening seemed pretty clear. The girl was, or fancied herself, in the power of an unscrupulous scamp who was using that power for some purpose of his own. If that was it—and this thing, Laurie handsomely admitted, really did happen sometimes—it ought to be fairly easy for an athletic chap of twenty-four to put an end to it. He recalled the look in Shaw's projecting eyes, the snakelike forward thrust of his sleek head; and an intense desire seized him to get his hands on the fellow's throat and choke him till his eyes stuck out twice as far as they did now. If that were duty, then duty would be a delight.

Having reached this edifying point in his reflections, he rose. Why delay? Perhaps he could find the chap somewhere. Perhaps the waiter at the restaurant where they had lunched knew where he lived. But, no, of course not. It was not the kind of restaurant his sort patronized. Shaw had simply followed him and Doris there; that was all there was to it. He, Laurie, would have to wait for another encounter. Meantime he might run around to the club and box for an hour. He had been getting a bit out of condition this month. A bout with McDonald, the club trainer, would do him good. Or, by Jove, he'd go and see Louise Ordway!

He had promised his new brother-in-law, Bob Warren, to keep an eye on Bob's sister while Warren and Barbara were in Japan, and Laurie had kept the promise with religious fidelity and very real pleasure. He immensely liked and admired Mrs. Ordway, who seemed, strangely, to be always at home of late. He had formed the habit of running in several times a week. Louise not only talked, but, as Laurie expressed it, "she said things." He had spent with her many of the afternoons and evenings Bangs checked up to the cabarets.

He glanced at his watch. For an hour he had been impersonating a gentleman engaged in profound meditation, with the sole result that he had decided to go to see Louise. It was quite possible he could enlist her interest in Doris. Now, that was an inspiration! Perhaps Mrs. Ordway would understand Doris. Every woman, he vaguely believed, understood all other women. He smoothed his hair, straightened his tie, and hurried off.

He found Mrs. Ordway reclining on a chaise longue before an open fire, in the boudoir in which his sister Barbara had spent so many hours of the past year, playing the invalid to sleep. She wore a superb Mandarin coat, of soft and ravishing tints, and her love for rich colors was reflected in the autumnal tones of her room and even in the vari-colored flames of her driftwood fire. To Louise these colors were as definite as mellow trumpet-tones. She had responded to them all her life. She was responding to them still, now that she lay dying among them. Something in their superb arrogance called forth an answering note from her own arrogant soul.

She greeted her brother's young brother-in-law with the almost disdainful smile she now turned on everything, but which was softened a little for him. Ignorant of the malady that was eating her life away, as indeed all her friends were ignorant of it, save Barbara and her doctors, Laurie delighted in the picture she made. He showed his delight as he dropped into a chair by her side. They fell at once into the casual banter that characterized their intercourse.

"I wonder why I ever leave here?" he mused aloud, as the clock struck six. He had been studying with a slight shock the changes that had taken place in the few days since he had seen her. For the first time the suspicion crossed his mind that she might be seriously ill. Throughout their talk he had observed things, trifles, perhaps, but significant, which, if they had occurred before, had escaped him.

Susanne, Mrs. Ordway's maid, though modestly in the background, was rarely out of sight; and a white-capped nurse, till now an occasional and illusive vision in the halls, blew in and out of the sick-room like a breeze, bringing liquids in glasses, which the patient obediently swallowed. Laurie, his attention once caught, took it all in. But his face gave no hint of his new knowledge, and the eyes of Louise still met his with the challenge they turned on every one these days—a challenge that definitely forbade either understanding or sympathy.

"The real problem is why you ever come." She spoke lightly, but looked at him with genuine affection. Laurie was one of her favorites, her prime favorite, indeed, next to Bob and Barbara. He smiled at her with tender significance.

"You know why I come."

"I do," she agreed, "perfectly. I know you're quite capable of flirting with me, too, if I'd let you, you absurd boy. Laurie,"—for a moment or two she was almost serious—"why don't you fall in love?"

"And this from you?"

"Don't be foolish. You know I like your ties," she interpolated kindly. "But, really, isn't there some one?"

Laurie turned his profile to her, pulled a lock of hair over his brow, clasped his hands between his knees, and posed esthetically.

"Do you know," he sighed, "I begin to think that, just possibly, perhaps, there's a slight chance—that there is!"

"Be serious. Tell me about her."

"Well, she's a girl." He produced this confidence with ponderous solemnity. "She lives across the square from me," he added.

"Things brighten," commented Louise, drily. "Go on."

"She's mysterious. I don't know who she is, or anything about her. But I know that she's in trouble."

"Of course she is! I have never known a mysterious maiden that wasn't," commented the woman of the world. "What's her particular variety of trouble?"

Laurie reflected.

"That's hard to say," he brought out at last. "But it appears to be mixed up with an offensive person in a crumpled blue suit who answers to the name of Herbert Ransome Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?"

Louise wrinkled her fastidious nose.

"Never, I'm happy to say. But he doesn't sound attractive. However, tell me all about them. There seems a good chance that they may get you into trouble."

"That's what she said."

"It's the one gleam of intelligence I see in the situation," commented his candid friend. "Is she pretty?"

"As lovely in her way as you are. Think you could help her any?" wheedled Laurie.

"I doubt it. I'm too selfish to be bothered with girls who are in trouble. I'll tell you who can help her—Sonya Orleneff."

"Of course!" Laurie beamed at her. "Wonder why I didn't think of that."

"Probably because it was so obvious. Sonya is in town, as it happens, stopping at the Warwick. She has brought the Infant Samuel to New York to have his adenoids cut out. Samuel made a devastating visit here this morning. He's getting as fat as a little pig, and when he walks he puffs like a worn-out automobile going up a steep grade. He came up my stairs on 'low,' and I'm sure they heard him on the avenue. I almost offered him a glass of gasolene. But he is a lamb," she added reflectively. Oddly enough, Samuel, late of New York's tenements, was another of her favorites.

Laurie was following his own thoughts. Sonya was in town! Then, however complicated his problem, it was already as good as solved.

"My dinner will be up soon," suggested Louise. "Are you dining with me?"

He glanced at his watch, reproachfully shook his head at it, and rose.

"Three hours of me are all you can have this time. But I'll probably drop around about dawn to-morrow."

"Nice boy!" Her hot hand caught his and held it. "Laurie, if—if—I should send for you suddenly sometime—you'd come and—stand by?"

All the gaiety was wiped from his face. His brilliant black eyes, oddly softened, looked into her haughty blue ones with sudden understanding.

"You bet I will! Any time, anything! You'll remember that? Send for me as if I were Bob. Perhaps you've forgotten it," he added, more lightly, "but I happen to be your younger brother."

For a moment her face twisted. The mask of her arrogance fell from it.

"Bob didn't know," she said. "If he had felt the least suspicion he wouldn't have gone so far, or for so long. I thought I had three or four months—"

Laurie bent and kissed her cheek.

"I'm coming in every day," he said, and abruptly left the room.

In the lower hall he stopped to take in the full real realization of what he had discovered. Louise, superb, arrogant, beautiful Louise, was really ill, desperately ill. A feeling of remorse mingled with his sense of shock. He had believed her a sort of nervous hypochondriac. He had so resented her excessive demands on Barbara that it was only since he had seen much of her in this last month that he had been able whole-heartedly to like and admire her.

As he stood silent, he became conscious of another presence—an august, impressive one, familiar in the past but veiled now, as it were, in a midst of human emotion. It was Jepson, the butler. He coughed humbly.

"Hexcuse me, sir," he faltered. "But Mrs. Hordway h'ain't quite so well lately, sir. 'Ave you hobserved that?"

Laurie nodded. "I noticed it to-day," he admitted.

"She's losin' strength very fast, sir. Hall of us 'as seen it. Cook says she don't eat nothink. And Susanne and the nurse says it's 'ard work to get 'er from the bed to 'er chair—"

Laurie checked these revelations.

"Has the doctor been here to-day?"

"Yessir, two of 'em 'ave been 'ere. Doctor Speyer comes hevery day. This morning 'e brought Doctor Hames again. Hit's very hupsetting, sir, with 'er brother away and hall."

The man was genuinely anxious. Laurie tried to reassure him.

"She may be better in a day or two," he said, more buoyantly than he felt. "But I'll come in every day. And here's my telephone number. If anything goes wrong, call me up immediately. Leave a message if I'm not there."

"Yessir. Thank you, sir." Jepson was pathetically grateful and relieved. He had the English servant's characteristic need of sanction and authority.

When Laurie reached his rooms, he called Sonya on the telephone. Like Jepson, he was feeling rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities. It was a relief to hear Sonya's deep, colorful voice.

"Didn't know you were here till just now," he told her. "I'm coming to see you in the morning. I want to talk to you about a lot of things."

"Including Mrs. Ordway?" suggested Sonya.

"Yes. You saw her to-day. You noticed—"

"Of course. Samuel is to be operated on to-morrow. I'll send him back to Devon House with his mother in a few days, as soon as he can safely travel, and I shall stay right here."

"That's splendid of you!"

"It's what Barbara and Mr. Warren would wish. And Mrs. Ordway, too, I think, though she would never suggest it."

"I'm sure it is."

Laurie hung up the receiver with a nervous hand. To a youth of twenty-four it is a somewhat overpowering experience to discover that destiny is especially busy over the affairs of two women for whom he has assumed a definite responsibility. As he turned from the instrument its bell again compelled his attention. He took up the receiver, and the voice of a girl came to his ear. A week or two ago he had rather liked that voice and its owner, a gay, irresponsible, good-hearted little creature who pranced in the front row of an up-town pony ballet. Now he listened to it with keen distaste.

"Hello, Laurie," it twittered. "Is that you? This is Billie. Listen. I gotta plan. A bunch of us is goin' out to Gedney to supper to-night. We're goin' to leave right after the show. Are you on?"

Laurie got rid of the fair Billie. He did it courteously but very firmly. A rather unusual degree of firmness was necessary, for Miss Billie was not used to having her invitations refused. She accepted the phenomenon with acute unwillingness and very lingeringly.

Bangs was not at home, to divert his chum's mind with his robust conversation. As he dressed for his call on Doris, the sharp contrasts of life struck Laurie with the peculiar force with which they hit the young and the inexperienced.

But were they really contrasts? On the one side were Louise, dying, and Doris, seemingly eager to die. On the other were Billie and her friends—foolish little butterflies, enjoying their brief hour in the secret garden of life, eternally chattering about "good times," playing they were happy, perhaps even thinking they were happy, but infinitely more tragic figures than Louise and Doris. Yet a week ago he had thought they amused him!

Pondering on these and other large problems, he absently removed the bloom from three fresh white ties.



CHAPTER VII

GRIGGS GETS AN ORDER

At eight o'clock Laurie found Doris sitting under the shade of a reading-lamp in her studio, deep in the pages of a sophisticated French novel and radiating an almost oppressive atmosphere of well-being.

Subconsciously, he resented this. His mood was keyed to tragedy. But he returned her half-serious, half-mocking smile with one as enigmatic, shook hands with grave formality, and surveyed with mild interest a modest heap of bank-notes of small denominations that lay on the table, catching the room's high lights. Following his glance, Doris nodded complacently.

"I left them there for you to see," she remarked.

"Did the kind gentleman under the three balls give you all that?"

"He did. Count it."

Laurie frowned.

"Don't be so arrogant about your wealth. It's fleeting. Any copy-book will tell you so."

She opened a small drawer in the table, swept the bills into it, and casually closed it. Laurie stared.

"Are you going to leave it there? Just like that?"

She looked patient.

"Why not?"

"I begin to understand why you are sometimes financially cramped."

He took the bills, smoothed them out flat, rolled back the rug to the edge of the table, laid the money under it, and carefully replaced the rug.

"That's the place to put it," he observed, with calm satisfaction. "No one connected with a studio ever lifts a rug. Bangs and I used to throw our money under the furniture, and pick it up as we needed it; but others sometimes reached it first. This way is better. How lovely you look!" he added. As he spoke he comfortably seated himself on the other side of the reading-lamp, and moved the lamp to a point where it would not obstruct his view of her.

She did look lovely. She had put on an evening gown, very simply made, but rich in the Oriental coloring she loved. She was like Louise in that. Laurie's thoughts swung to the latter's sick-room, and his brilliant young face grew somber. The girl lounging in the big chair observed the sudden change in his expression. She pushed a box of cigarettes toward him.

"Smoke if you like," she said, indifferently. "All my friends do."

He caught the phrase. Then she had friends!

"Including Herbert Ransome Shaw?" he asked, as he lit a match.

"Don't include him among my friends! But—he was here this afternoon."

"He was!" In his rising interest Laurie nearly let the match go out. "What did he want?"

"To warn me to have nothing to do with you."

"I like his infernal cheek!"

Laurie lit the cigarette and puffed at it savagely. Then, rising, he drew his chair forward and sat down facing her.

"See here," he said quietly, "you'd better tell me the whole story. I can't help you much if I'm kept in the dark. But if you'll let me into things—And before I forget it," he interrupted himself to interject, "I want to bring a friend of mine to call on you. She will be a tower of strength. She's a Russian, and one of the best women I know."

She listened with a slight smile.

"What's her name?"

"Miss Orleneff, Sonya Orleneff, a great pal of my sister's and an all-round good sort. I'd like to bring her in to-morrow afternoon. Will five be convenient?"

"No." She spoke now with the curtness of the morning. "In no circumstances," she added, decisively.

"But—why?"

He was dazed. If ever a knight errant worked under greater difficulties than these, Laurie told himself, he'd like to know the poor chap's name.

"I have no wish to meet Miss Orleneff."

"But she's an ideal person for you to know, experienced, sympathetic, and understanding. She did a lot for my sister last year. I must tell you all about that sometime. She could do more for you—"

"Mr. Devon!" The finality of her tone brought him up short. "We must understand each other."

"I should like nothing better." He, too, was suddenly formal.

"This morning you projected yourself into my life."

"Literally," he cordially agreed.

"I am grateful to you for what you did and what you wish to do. But I will not meet any more strangers. I will not meet Miss Orleneff, or any one else. Is that clear?"

"Oh, perfectly!" Laurie sighed. "Of course you're a crowned head," he mused aloud. "I had forgotten. Would you like my head on a charger, or anything like that?"

She studied him thoughtfully.

"Almost from the first," she said, "and except for an occasional minute or two, you have refused to be serious. That interests me. Why is it? Aren't you willing to realize that there are real troubles in the world, terrible troubles, that the bravest go down under?"

"Of course." He was serious now. He had begun to realize that fully. "It's my unfortunate manner, I suppose," he defended himself. "I've never taken anything seriously for very long. It's hard to form the habit, all of a sudden."

"You will have to take me seriously."

He made a large gesture of acceptance.

"All right," he promised. "That brings us back to where we were. Tell me the truth. If there's anything in it that really menaces you, you'll find me serious enough."

Before answering, she rose and opened the studio door, on which, he observed with approval, a strong new lock and an inside bolt had already been placed. He saw her peer up and down the hall. Then she closed and bolted the door, and returned to her chair. The precaution brought before him a mental vision of Herbert Ransome Shaw prowling about the dim corridors. He spoke incredulously.



"Are you really afraid of that chap?"

"I have good reason to be," she said quietly. She sat down in her chair again, rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, in the pose already so familiar to him, and added quietly, "He is the source of all my present trouble."

She stopped and turned her head to listen.

"Do you hear anything moving in the hall?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"No. Shall I look?"

She shook her head. "Don't unbolt the door."

"You're nervous. I'm sure there's nothing there. Please go on," he urged. "Our little friend Bertie—"

Seeing her expression, he stopped short. "Forgive me," he said, humbly. "But the plain truth is, it's awfully hard for me to take that fellow seriously. Oh, I know he's venomous," he conceded, "but I can't help feeling that he hasn't as much power over you as you think he has."

He realized that she was listening, but not to him.

"There is some one outside that door!" she whispered.

Laurie leaped to the door as noiselessly as a cat, unbolted it, and flung it open. The hall was empty. He had an instantaneous impression that something as silent as a moving shadow had vanished around the staircase at the far end, but when he reached the spot he saw nothing save the descending iron spirals of successive stairways. He returned to his companion, smiling reassuringly.

"It's our nerves," he said. "In a few minutes more I shall be worrying about Bertie, myself."

"Bolt the door again," she directed.

He obeyed. She went on as if there had been no interruption to their talk.

"It isn't what he is," she admitted. "He himself is nothing, as you say. It's what is back of him that—that frightens me! Why don't you smoke?" she interrupted herself to ask.

Laurie automatically selected and lit another cigarette.

"I know what's going to be back of Bertie pretty soon," he darkly predicted. "Whoever he is, and whatever he is doing, he has a big jolt coming to him, and it's coming fast."

He laid down the cigarette and turned to her with his most charming expression, a wonderfully sweet smile, half shy, wholly boyish. Before this look, any one who loved Laurence Devon was helpless.

"Come," he said gently, "tell me the whole story. You know it's not curiosity that makes me ask. But how can I help you when I'm working in the dark?"

As she hesitated, his brilliant eyes, so softened now, continued to hold hers.

"And I want to help you," he added. "I want that privilege more than I want anything else in the world."

For a long moment she sat still, as if considering his words, her eyes on her hands, folded in her lap. The strange, deep flush he had noticed once before again stained her face. At last she straightened up with a quick movement, throwing back her shoulders as if to take on again some burden they had almost cast off.

"I am sorry to seem so mysterious," she said, "and so unresponsive. I will tell you this much, and it is more than I ought to say. In the situation we are in I am in his power, horribly so. He can crush me at any time he chooses."

"Then why doesn't he?"

The gentleness of her caller's voice softened the brusqueness of his words.

"Because—" She stopped again. For the first time she had become embarrassed and self-conscious. She made her climax in a rush: "Lately he insists that he has fallen in love with me!"

Laurie uttered an ejaculation. It was not a pretty one, but it nicely fitted the emergency.

"He has hoped that to save myself, and others, I will marry him, the contemptible, crawling snake!"

The listener was impressed by her comparison. Certainly there was something ophidian about Shaw. He himself had noticed it.

"Then, for the time being, you're really safe?" he suggested.

"No. His patience is exhausted. He is beginning to realize that I'd rather die."

"The police can stop all this nonsense." But Laurie spoke without his customary authority.

"Don't imagine that. The police know nothing about this matter, and they never will." A sudden thought struck her and she rose almost with a spring. He rose, too, staring at her in bewilderment. She caught his shoulders and held them tightly, in a grip wholly free from self-consciousness.

"If you warn the police," she said swiftly; "if you draw them into this, you will ruin everything. You will do me a harm that could never be undone. Give me your word that you won't. Please, please!"

She was almost shaking him now. Under the clasp of her hands on his shoulders Laurie paled a little, but his black eyes held hers steadily.

"Of course I promise," he said, slowly, "as you make such a point of it."

She removed her hands and stepped back.

"Please go now."

"So soon? Why, I've only just come!"

"I know—but I'm tired."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of this. It was a poignant outcry. Clearly, she was at the breaking-point. He took both her hands.

"This whole experience gives me the oddest feeling," he told her gently. "In one way, I seem to be dreaming it. Under it all there's a conviction that I'm on the track of the mystery; that everything will be cleared up, for us both, in another minute or two. It's merely an instinct. I can't explain it. But one thing I know. Sooner or later—sooner, I hope—I shall be able to work it out for you."

She seemed suddenly to remember that he was holding her hands. Flushing, she gently withdrew them. Then she turned, and with a brusque gesture walked away from him.

"I'm sorry I got you into this!" she cried.

"Don't worry about me." He smiled at her from the door he was holding open. "May I come and take you to lunch to-morrow?"

"Not to-morrow. The next day, perhaps."

"We've got to look for that job, you know."

"With all this?" She indicated with the toe of her slipper a significant spot on the rug.

Laurie regarded the slipper with approval. It was a beautiful slipper, on a charming foot. It so diverted his mind from the main issue of the conversation that he was in the elevator and half-way down to the ground floor before he recalled that issue. He was not disturbed. Doris had enough to go on with; and certainly he himself had sufficient scope for thought in the revelations she had just made.

As he walked down the outer steps of the studio building and emerged on the sidewalk, a figure detached itself from the shadow of a low iron fence and stealthily followed him. It was a short figure, overcoated out of recognition. It carried its hands in its pockets, and its head was thrust forward in a peculiar way. It kept a dozen feet behind him, until he reached the pretentious entrance of the apartment building where he dwelt.

Here, in the glaring light of two huge electric globes, conveniently held aloft for him by a pair of bronze warriors, Laurie turned suddenly, warned by the inner sense that tells us we are watched. The figure behind ducked modestly into the background, but not until he had recognized the round face and projecting eyes of Herbert Ransome Shaw.

Laurie checked a passionate impulse to hurl himself upon that lurking and unpleasant shape. Slowly but surely he was learning self-control. Martin, the elevator operator, and Griggs, the night hall man, were already bidding him good evening and regarding him with friendly and interested eyes. To see him suddenly fall upon and beat a shabby stranger would surprise and pain them, besides unpleasantly stirring up the neighborhood. A better opportunity would present itself, or could be made.

In the meantime, however, he must convey to Herbert Ransome Shaw some idea of the utter contempt in which he held him. Taking Griggs confidentially by the arm, Laurie pointed out the skulking shadow.

"See that?" he asked in ringing tones.

Griggs was a Goliath in proportions and deliberate in his movements. He took his time to discover the object young Devon indicated. In the shadow the object stirred restlessly.

"Yessir," Griggs then said, uncertainly. "It's—it's a man, sir."

"Is it?" asked Laurie with interest, and still in loud, clear tones. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. But whatever it is, step on it!"

He entered the elevator after this crisp instruction, and was wafted up to his rooms. The hall man moved hesitatingly down the building's three steps to the sidewalk. One never knew exactly what young Devon was getting at. Still, if he really wanted Griggs to step on anything—

Griggs stopped. A slight sensation of disappointment swept over him. He was a conscientious man who desired to do his duty. But there was absolutely nothing for him to step on, except the snow-covered and otherwise inoffensive pavement.



CHAPTER VIII

SAMUEL PLAYS A NEW GAME

The next morning Laurie awoke from troubled dreams with a vague feeling that life was getting a rise out of him, a feeling that the absent morning greeting of Rodney Bangs did not help to dissipate.

Without realizing it, young Devon had rather sunned himself in the adulation of his chum. When this adulation was removed, he missed it; and for the present, at least, there was no question that adulation was lacking.

Not that Bangs failed in any of the outward forms of friendship, but his manner had changed. He was increasingly preoccupied. When Laurie spoke, Bangs had the effect of coming to him from a long distance, and even of having one foot extended, as it were, for the return journey.

The two young men breakfasted together, for the first time in several days; and over their coffee and cigarettes Laurie confided to his friend his new anxiety about Mrs. Ordway.

Bangs at once became human. Indeed, he showed a degree of solicitude that surprised his friend. It was suddenly clear that Rodney was vastly interested in Louise. He had even ventured to call on her, though Laurie did not yet know this; for the first call was made, as it happened, on the afternoon of the day when the two young men had indulged in their first serious quarrel.

Bangs, usually the most modest and self-conscious of youths, had abruptly lost his shyness under the urge of a need to talk about his chum to some one who would understand. And Louise had understood, quite surprisingly. Recalling the long talk he and she had had, the help she had given him, the plans they had made, Rodney grew very serious.

"It's lucky Sonya's in town," he said, when this further fact had been revealed. "Let's go over to the hotel and see her right after breakfast. Perhaps we ought to cable to Warren. Sonya will know."

He spoke with such studied carelessness that Laurie flashed a sudden look at him. Under it Bangs flushed to the roots of his burnished pompadour.

"Well, well," murmured Laurie, "this is interesting! Odd I didn't notice it before."

Whatever "it" was, he gave his whole attention to it now. Leaning forward, he ostentatiously studied Bangs, with an expression at once indulgent and amazed.

"A flush on his cheek, too," he mused aloud.

"Shut up!" Bangs clenched his teeth, while the flush deepened.

"Easily irritated; respiration slightly irregular, all the familiar symptoms."

"For God's sake, Laurie, don't be an ass!" begged Bangs.

"All the familiar symptoms—of a heavy cold," murmured Laurie, sympathetically. "A hot bath and a dose of quinine might help at this stage. But if it gets worse—" Laurie reflected, anxiously shaking his head—"if it gets worse I'll send for Sonya," he finished brightly.

He rose, dodged the roll Rodney hurled at him, and strolled out of the room, opening the door again to add an afterthought that suddenly occurred to him.

"Don't risk your life by going to the hotel, old man," he added, kindly. "Take your quinine, and I will call on Sonya."

"She'll tell us whether or not to cable for Warren," repeated Bangs, with great dignity.

But Sonya, when she came into her hotel sitting-room an hour later, did not immediately solve this problem. For the moment her mind was wholly on the Infant Samuel, who was to have his adenoids cut out that morning, and who had been encouraged to look forward to the experience as a new delight. While they were expressing fitting interest, Samuel himself entered the room, alone, but with all the effect of a juvenile procession. By the left leg he dragged his most cherished possession, a battered and dim-featured rag doll. Hospitably greeting the two young men, he solemnly presented the doll to Bangs.

"What's this?" asked Rodney, with a friendly impulse to adapt his conversation to the young.

"Hullen," affirmed Samuel, "Hullen, R. J."

"What does that mean?" Bangs appealed to Sonya.

"It's the doll's name. He gave it to her himself. 'Hullen,' I suppose, means Helen, and Mr. Warren's initials, you know, are R. J. Evidently Samuel liked the sound of them."

Samuel retrieved Hullen R. J.

"Hullen R. J. go hos'tl wiv Sammy," he further announced.

"She will," corroborated Sonya. "He never stirs without her, and she sleeps in his bed every night."

Laurie turned a shocked gaze on Samuel, and Sonya laughed, then gulped.

"I'm horribly nervous this morning," she admitted. "I wish it were over. You see, a certain cherub isn't going to like matters at all after they really begin at the hos'tl. And his mother will be more of a burden than a help."

Bangs had an inspiration.

"Suppose I go with you," he suggested. "Then if you need a strong man to hold the cherub—"

"Two strong men," corrected Laurie. "Do you imagine that I'm going to desert Samuel in his hour of need? Besides, I've got to keep an eye on Bangs," he added sweetly, and was rewarded by a glare from that overwrought young man.

"Noticed anything odd about Bangs lately?" Laurie asked Sonya.

She turned on Rodney the dark gaze of her serene eyes.

"Why, no."

"You will," Laurie predicted, with a mournful shake of the head. "Watch him closely, and call on me if there are alarming symptoms that you don't understand."

Bangs rushed into confused speech.

"He thinks I've got a cold," he gulped. "His nonsense, of course. Nothing in the world the matter with me. Er—how soon do we start?"

Laurie, helpless with laughter, rolled the ecstatic Samuel on the floor. Samuel's voice took on an added note of jubilation. Sonya, his mother, Hullen R. J., "Lawwie" and "Misser Bangs" all going with him to the hos'tl—it was almost too much pleasure! Samuel became slightly intoxicated.

"He wants to sing," remarked Laurie, with masculine understanding of a fellow heart. "All right, old man," he encouraged. "How about that beautiful hymn I taught you at Bab's wedding?"

With considerable help Samuel recalled the ditty:

"Hey, hey, ve gangsall here, Whalahaloo we care, Whalahaloo we care, Now—wow—wow—WOW—WOW!"

"Laurie!"

Sonya spoke with sudden austerity. "It's a relief from his mental strain," Laurie explained. "Any doctor will tell you that."

* * * * *

In the hos'tl, however, things assumed a different aspect. Still firmly holding Hullen R. J. by the leg, and keeping a steadfast eye on the surgeon, Samuel took in his immediate surroundings with a dawning suspicion in his soul. Having two men throw lights on his face and look down his throat had lost its novelty, though Sonya had assured him that wonderful views were to be seen there which he alone could reveal. Also, the men seemed hurried, and didn't want to look at Hullen R. J.'s throat, though Samuel warmly recommended this variety in the entertainment.

In short, the situation had become sinister. The smiles around him were dreadful-looking things, all except Laurie's. With an appalling howl Samuel detached himself from the surgeon's grasp and fled to Laurie, who picked him up and held him firmly and comfortably in his lap until a lady in white came with something nice for Samuel to smell.

The next thing Samuel knew was that he was in bed in a strange room. He gulped and discovered that his throat was sore. He sat up, distended his mouth for a yell, and then very slowly closed it.

From every corner of the room familiar figures were hastening to his side. The lady in white, Sonya, and his mother all reached him at the same moment. On the pillow beside him Hullen R. J. awaited the honor of his attention like a perfect lady. No howls from her, as Sonya immediately pointed out. As she thus soothed, Sonya was kissing him. The lady in white was offering him something pleasant to drink. His mother was patting his back.

For a long instant Samuel took in the gratifying fact of these activities. Then he assorted his features, grabbed Hullen R. J., exchanged his yell for a large smile, and permitted himself to be waited on. Deep in his masculine consciousness he had realized that his world was normal again.

Bangs and Laurie walked up Fifth Avenue together, stopping at a florist's to purchase the man's entire supply of roses for Mrs. Ordway. Bangs also discovered some masses of poinsettia and chrysanthemums that, as he said, "looked like her." Laden with these spoils, they took a taxicab to the Ordway house, where they found Jepson exuding an atmosphere of reassurance.

Yessir, Mrs. Hordway seemed better. She 'ad a more restful night, han' Susanne said was quite bright this morning. Hof course she'd see Mr. Devon, hand prob'bly Mr. Bangs, halso. Jepson would harsk at once.

Jepson moved ponderously away to do so, while Rodney, opening his big box in the hall, drew out the poinsettia and chrysanthemums and proceeded to arrange them in a gorgeous armful. Bangs had unexpected taste in color and arrangement, as Epstein's stage-directors had discovered in the past. Laurie watched him with polite interest.

"Making a picture of yourself, aren't you?" he asked. "Going into the sick-room with your little hands full of flowers?" But even as he scoffed he was unwrapping his own flowers. Bangs was right. The act of handing a pasteboard box to a sick friend lacked esthetic value.

Jepson returned with a cordial message. Mrs. Ordway would be charmed to see both young men, but she received only one visitor at a time. Would Mr. Bangs come up now? And perhaps Mr. Devon would drop in again during the afternoon or evening.

Rodney grasped his floral offerings and mounted the stairs two steps at a time. He was excited and his brown eyes showed it. It was most awfully good of Mrs. Ordway to let him come up in this informal way. Standing by the chaise longue where she lay, he told her so, his auburn head shining among the flowers he carried, like a particularly large chrysanthemum. Then, selecting some empty vases, he sat down on the floor beside her and began to arrange his flowers, while she watched him, at first with surprise, then with growing admiration.

Rodney had no social airs and graces, no parlor tricks. If he had been formally sitting on a chair, holding his hat, he would have been a self-conscious and unhappy young man. As it was, with hands and eyes busy, and wholly at his ease, he talked his exuberant best.

"How about Laurie's romance?" Louise asked at once.

Bangs told her about the vision in the mirror. As he did so, luncheon was served, and he was casually invited to share it. Susanne, moving shuttle-like between the table in the sick-room and the dumb-waiter in the upper hall, presently confided to a young footman a surprising piece of news, which he in turn confided to the incredulous Jepson. Young Mr. Bangs, who was lunching with Mrs. Ordway, must be as amusing as young Mr. Devon himself. He had actually made the mistress laugh both times he came. She was laughing now, as Susanne had not heard her laugh for weeks. To be sure, this was one of her good days. But it wasn't easy to amuse Mrs. Ordway at any time.

Jepson summed up the situation in an oracular utterance:

"Henny one that's a friend of Mr. Devon's his hall right."

When Rodney was leaving, Jepson's mistress expressed the same thought to her guest in a different way.

"Come often," she said. "You have given me a new interest. I don't think you can quite realize what that means to me."

When Sonya arrived at five that afternoon, she found Jepson still exuding reassurance. With two doctors within call, a nurse in the house, and Mr. Devon and Miss Orleneff to telephone to at a moment's notice, "nothink much could 'appen." So reasoned Jepson. He beamed approvingly on Sonya, informed her that Mr. Devon was in the sick-room now, and waved her through the hall with an effect of benediction.

She found Laurie just leaving, and they had a moment's chat on the upper landing. Mrs. Ordway, he told her, was rather restless this afternoon, but she seemed better than she had been yesterday. However, he didn't like her looks at all, and he fancied the nurse was disturbed. Suppose Sonya sounded Louise about cabling for Warren? Surely Warren would want to know, Laurie thought.

For the moment Laurie's striking good looks were slightly dimmed. He was hollow-eyed, almost haggard. Things were coming just a bit too fast for him. The habit of carrying the burden of others had been taken on too suddenly. Under the strain of it, his untrained mental muscles ached.

It was the irony of fate that Sonya, looking at him with the clear brown eyes that were so much softer than Bangs's, and so much less beautiful than Doris's, should misinterpret his appearance, his emotion, and his reaction from the high spirits of the morning. He was again going the pace, she decided; and, mingled with her pity for him, rose the scorn of a strong soul that was the absolute master of the body in which it dwelt.

His newly aroused perception carried some hint of this scorn to the boy, covered though it was by the friendliness of Sonya's manner. The knowledge added to his wretchedness. He had a childish desire to explain, but he conquered it and hurried away. Some day, if not now, Sonya would understand.

What he himself did not understand was the long stride he had taken in the moment when he felt and resented her unspoken criticism. Heretofore his attitude had been one of expressed and sincere indifference to the opinions others held of him. He wanted them to like him, but he didn't care a hang whether or not they approved of him. Now, suddenly, he wanted Sonya's respect as well as her liking. The discovery added to his mental confusion.

If Sonya, when she entered the sick-room, was shocked by the change in the appearance of her new friend, she showed no sign of it. Sitting down beside the chaise longue, she entered briskly upon a description of the recent experiences of Samuel. When she left the hospital the house surgeon was obediently endeavoring to look down the throat of Hullen R. J., and every nurse on Samuel's floor was scuttering in and out of his room. Nevertheless the Infant, though graciously accepting these attentions, had demanded and received Sonya's personal assurance that the particular game of the morning was not to be repeated. There was an unpleasant element in that game which grown-ups might not notice but which he, Samuel, had caught on to.

Louise laughed and expressed a hope that Samuel would now be able to breathe without disturbing his neighbors. Sonya came to the real purpose of her visit.

"He and his mother are going back to Devon House Saturday," she said, "but I've got to stay in New York for a few months, on account of my literary galumphings. I wondered if you—if it would be convenient for you—to put me up. I hate hotels and—"

Louise lay silent for a moment. Then she reached out and took Sonya's hand.

"Yes, you unskilful prevaricator," she said. "You may come—and see me through."

Sonya held the hand tightly in her own.

"There's one thing more," she went on, hesitatingly. "Laurie and Mr. Bangs and I wondered if perhaps you wouldn't feel more comfortable if Mr. Warren came home. You know he himself would want to—"

Louise closed her eyes.

"Yes," she said, "Bob would want to, if he knew."

She was silent for so long that Sonya began to think she was not to have the answer to her question. Perhaps Mrs. Ordway was leaving the decision to her.

But to leave to others decisions that concerned herself was not Louise Ordway's habit. Instead, she was fighting a battle in which the lifelong devotion of a supremely self-centered nature was struggling with a new-born unselfishness. Though new-born, it was strong, as the invalid's next words showed.

"If I were calling him back from anything but his honeymoon," she said at last, "I'd do it. But he's utterly happy. His letters show that, in every line. I want him to stay so, as long as he can. I want his honeymoon to be long drawn out and perfect." Her manner changed.

"I have an idea that perhaps, after all, I'll be here when he gets back," she added more lightly. "Life still has its interests. But, if I happen not to be here, tell him why I didn't cable."

"I will tell him," Sonya promised.

Neither of them referred to the subject again.



CHAPTER IX

AN INVITATION

That evening Laurie walked across the square to Doris's studio with a decision in his stride which definitely expressed his mental attitude. He had come to the conclusion that something must be done. What this something would be was still hazy in his mind, but the first step at least seemed clear. Doris must move.

He was so convinced of the urgency of this step that he brought up the subject almost before the greetings of guest and hostess were over. Tossing his hat and coat on a convenient chair, he stood facing Doris, his hands in his pockets, his black eyes somber.

"We've got to get you out of this, you know," he abruptly announced.

Her eyes, which had brightened at his entrance, grew as somber as his own. Without replying, she turned, walked across the room to the window, and stood looking down into the street.

"Is he there?" she asked at last, and without moving her head.

"Shaw? Great Scott, no! At least I didn't see him. I suppose he takes a few hours off now and then, during the twenty-four; doesn't he?"

"Oh, yes, he comes and goes, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. I did not see him at all to-day until late this afternoon. Then he took up his post across the street just opposite this window, and stood there for almost an hour."

Laurie ground his teeth.

"What does he expect to gain by that performance?"

"Several things, I suppose. For one, he wants to get on my nerves; and he does," she added somberly, and still without turning.

Laurie made a vague tour around the room and brought up by her side.

"You know," he confessed, "I haven't really taken this thing in yet. Even now, this minute, it doesn't seem possible to me that Shaw could do you any real harm."

She nodded. "I know. Why should it? Even to me it is like a nightmare and I keep hoping to wake up. There are hours, even days, when I convince myself that it isn't real." She stopped. "It must be very hard for any one else to understand," she ended, when he did not speak.

"Nevertheless," admitted Laurie, "I can't forget it. I can't think of anything else."

She took this as naturally as she had taken his first remark.

"It's going to be very hard for you. I was wrong to draw you into it. I am realizing that more and more, every minute."

"You couldn't help yourself," he cheerfully reminded her. "Now that I am in it, as I've warned you before, I intend to run things. It seems to me that the obvious course for you is to move. After you're safely hidden somewhere, I think I can teach Herbert Ransome Shaw a lesson that won't react on you."

She shook her head.

"If I moved, how long do you think it would take him to find me?"

"Weeks, perhaps months."

Again she shook her head.

"I moved here a few days ago. He appeared exactly forty-eight hours later. If I moved from here it would only mean going through the game of hare and hounds again."

"But—" he began. She interrupted him.

"I've reached the point where I can't endure that any more." For the first time her voice broke. "Can't you imagine what that sort of thing would be? To get up in the morning and wonder if this is the day I'll see him under my window? To go to bed at night and ask myself if he is lurking in the shadows below, or across the street, or perhaps outside my very door? To know that sooner or later he will be there, that his coming is as inevitable as death itself—" She broke off.

"I sometimes think I'd rather see a boa-constrictor crawling into my room than see Shaw down on the sidewalk," she ended. "And yet—I know you can understand this—there's a queer kind of relief in the knowledge that at last, and finally, he has got me."

She whirled to face Laurie and threw out her hands. There was nothing theatrical in the gesture, merely an effect of entire finality.

"We have come to the end of things," she finished. "Since you would not have them end my way, they must end his way. Whatever happens, I shall not run and hide any more."

For a moment silence hung like a substance between them. Then the visitor resolutely shook off the effect of her words.

"I promise you I will get to the bottom of this," he quietly told her. "In the meantime, will you try to forget it, for a little while? You know you said you could do that, occasionally."

He was clearing the table as he spoke. Now he proceeded to unpack a basket he had sent over an hour before by Griggs, and which, he observed, had not been opened. Dropping back into her big chair, she watched him with an odd look. If he had seen this look it would have sorely puzzled him, for it held not only interest but an element of apprehension, even of fear.

"In the past two days," she said, after an interval, "you have sent me five baskets of food, four baskets of fruit, six boxes of candy, and three boxes of flowers. What do you suppose becomes of them all?"

"I know what becomes of the flowers." He cast an appreciative glance around the transformed room. "And I hope," he mildly added, "that you eat the food."

She broke into her rare laugh, soft, deep-throated, and contagious. Under it his spirits rose dizzyingly.

"You are feeding half the people in this building," she said, "not to mention Sam and his home circle. Sam has absorbed roast chicken, cold partridge, quail, and sweetbreads till he is getting critical. He asked me this morning if I shouldn't like ham and eggs for a change!"

Laurie felt slightly aggrieved.

"Do you mean to say that you're not eating any of the stuff yourself?" he demanded.

"Oh, I eat three meals a day. But I don't keep boarders, you know; so I give the rest to Sam to distribute. He feeds several dozen art students, I infer, and staggers home every night under the burden of what's left."

"There won't be anything left this night."

She had risen now and was helping to set the little table. Laurie looked at her with shining eyes. One of her rapid changes of mood had taken place, and she was entering into the spirit of the impromptu supper as cheerfully as if it were a new game and she a child. She had become a wholly different personality from the tragic-eyed girl who less than ten minutes ago had somberly announced that she was making her last stand in life. Again, as often before, Laurie felt overwhelmed by the rush of conflicting emotions she aroused.

"Shall we have this big bowl of roses in the center, or the four little bowls at the corners?" she asked absorbedly.

As she spoke, she studied the flowers with her head on one side. For the moment, it was clear, the question she had asked was the most vital in the world.

"The little ones," decided the guest. "The big one might shut off some of you from my devouring eyes." He was mixing ingredients in a chafing-dish as he spoke, and he wore the trying air of smug complacency that invariably accompanies that simple process.

"No," he objected, as she tried to help him, "I will do the brain-work. Your part is to be feminine and rush briskly back and forth, offering me things I don't want. And at the last moment," he added gloomily, "you may tell me that there isn't a lemon in the place." He looked about with the hopelessness of a great artist facing the failure of his chef-d'oeuvre. "I forgot the lemons."

She went across the room to a small closet. Even in the strain of the moment he observed the extraordinary grace and swiftness of her movements. She was very slender, very lithe, and she moved like a flash of light.

"Fancy my being caught without a lemon!" she scoffed, as she returned with the fruit. "Your brain-work stops abruptly sometimes, doesn't it?"

She handed him the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement, triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked at her. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shot through him. Oh, if she were always like this!—gay, happy, without that incredible, unbelievable background of tragedy and mystery! He turned his mind resolutely from the intruding thought. This hour at least was hers and his. It should be prolonged to the last moment.

What he longed for was to hear her talk, but that way, he knew, lay disaster to the little supper in swift-returning memory. If she began to talk, the forbidden topic, now dormant, would uncoil its hideous length and hiss. He must hold her attention to other things.

He plunged at random into chatter. For the first time he told her about Bangs, his chum, and about Epstein, their manager; about their plays and their experiences in rehearsals and on the road. Being very young and slightly spoiled, he experienced some chagrin in the discovery that she seemed alike ignorant of the men and the plays. Worse yet, she seemed not even aware that she should have known who Bangs and Epstein were. She did not recall having heard the title of "The Black Pearl." She was not only unaware that "The Man Above" had broken all box-office records; she seemed unconscious that it had ever been written. Observing his artless surprise, she gravely explained. "I have been interested in other things," she reminded him.

The forbidden topic was stirring, stretching. To quiet it, Laurie leaped into the comedy scenes of "The Man Above." They delighted her. Her soft, delicious laughter moved him to give her bits from "The Black Pearl," and, following these, the big scenes from the latter play. This last effort followed the supper; and Laurie, now in his highest spirits, added to his effects by the use of a brilliant afghan, and by much raising and lowering of the light of the reading-lamp.

He was a fine mimic. He became by turns the star, the leading lady, the comedian, and the "heavy" of the big play. It was only when he had stopped for a moment's rest, and Doris demanded a description of the leading lady's gowns, now represented by the afghan, that his ingenuity failed.

"They're so beautiful that most people think I made them," he said, serenely. "But I didn't, really, so I can't give you any details, except that they're very close-fitting around the feet."

He was folding up the afghan as he spoke, and he stopped in the act, leaving one end dangling on the floor. From the street below the sound of a whistle came up to him, sharp and penetrating, repeating over and over the same musical phrase, the opening notes of the Fifth Symphony. At first he thought the notes were whistled by some casual passer-by. Then, glancing at the girl's face, he knew better. The sharp, recurrent phrase was a signal.

He finished folding the afghan, and carefully replaced it on the divan from which he had borrowed it. As he did so, he prattled on. He had suddenly decided not to hear that signal. Doris, sitting transfixed and staring at him, slowly became convinced that he had not heard it.