Sassoon was on his feet, moving restlessly, as she entered. He was not accustomed to be kept waiting, and to wait half an hour after he had seen her enter just ahead of him was interminably vexing. And yet, he was profoundly grateful for this teasing delay. It awakened him; it made him hope. There was a resistance, a defiance, in it that was as precious as it was rare. He had wondered much about her as he moved with slow irritation, stopping occasionally to catch a reflection in the foggy mirror of his long, oriental, slightly hanging head, and the grizzled mustache which, with its mounting W, gave to his dulled eyes a sharp staccato quality of a blinking bird of prey.

The drawing-room, or parlor, was like ten thousand other parlors of boarding-houses—brown, musty, with an odor of upholstery and cooking, immense tableaux sunk into the obscurity of the walls, imitation Dresden shepherdesses on the mantel, an album of Miss Pim's on the table and a vase containing dried flowers, cheap furniture, a crippled sofa placed in a shadow, and weighing down all, the heavy respectability of a Sunday afternoon. Occasionally the front door opened to a latch-key, and a feminine form flitted by the doorway, always pausing curiously to survey the parlor before sorting the mail that lay displayed on the seat of the hat-rack.

Once a couple with cheery voices came full into the room before perceiving his tenancy. They withdrew abruptly, and he heard the girl saying to her escort:

"Oh, well, come up to the room; there's never a chance at the old parlor!"

This mediocrity, this quiet, these flitting forms of young women, the cub escort who was privileged to enjoy intimacy, strangely excited him. There was something really romantic in following a fancy into such a lair, and the longer the plaguing clock sounded its tinny march, the more vibrantly alert he felt, in the anticipation of her coming.

"I saw you come in!" he said directly. He did not move forward, but stood blinking at her like a night-bird disturbed in the day. "You've kept me waiting quite a while, young lady."

"Really?" she said indifferently. She stopped in the middle of the room. "Well, Pasha, do you expect me to come to you?"

He roused himself, hastily advancing. In truth, waiting for others to throw themselves at him had become such a habit that he had not noticed the omission.

"Pardon me! I was enjoying—you are a delightful picture!" he said in his silky voice.

She accepted the evasion with an unduped smile.

"You are lucky to catch me at all," she said. "I have an engagement up-town at three."

"Do you always wear the national costume?" he said, indicating her Russian blouse.

"Yes, always."

"But my flowers, Miss Baxter?" he said, standing after she had motioned him to a seat; and the glance from under the prominent, hanging upper lids, that half covered the irises, seemed to sift wearily down at her.

"Your flowers? What flowers? Sit down!"

"My orchids—yesterday—"

"Oh! Your orchids." She stopped suddenly, as though confused. "You won't be angry? I know you won't when I tell you about it! I gave them away."

He took his seat, rubbed the back of one hand with long soft fingers, and slowly raised his mocking glance to hers.

"Ah—you gave them away?"

"Yes! and you'll quite approve," she said, meeting his inquisitorial scrutiny without confusion. "I'll tell you just how it was. I have a protÉgÉe, an old woman who sells newspapers under the elevated station—such an old woman! If I were rich I'd send her off to a farm and make her happy for the rest of her life! The first day I came to New York I hadn't any money. I didn't know what to do! I sold newspapers!"

"You?"

"Yes! You didn't hear? Oh, it made quite a fuss at the time! The newspapers had it, 'Mysterious Society Woman Sells Papers.' And I made a lot of money—no change, naturally! Too bad I didn't know you then; you would have paid at least a dollar a paper!"

She laughed gaily, a little excited at the recollection.

"It was quite romantic! Well, my old woman gave me the idea. She's been my mascot ever since. Every day I get my papers from her. Last night, coming back after a spin, I stopped as usual. I had the orchids here at my waist; I noticed her eying them.

"'What are you looking at? These?' I asked.

"She bobbed her head. She has only five teeth—the funniest teeth! You ought to see them; none of them meet.

"'At these flowers?'

"She bobbed again.

"'You like flowers?'

"Then she came up close to me—the way old people do, you know—and said in my ear:

"'When I was your age, my darling, I had flowers, like those, every day!'

"And she drew back, nodding and bobbing, smiling her toothless smile."

DorÉ stopped, pressed her hand to her throat and said in a muffled voice:

"It just took me. Something came right up in my throat—I could have cried! I tore them off and threw them in her arms. If you could have seen the look she gave me! She kissed them. Ah! it made me very happy, I can tell you!"

Did he believe her? He didn't care! Perhaps he preferred that it should have been invented.

"It will mean a great deal to her," he said, his eyes on hers—his eyes, that began to light up as lanterns showing through the fall of night.

"It will mean a great deal!" she said, with an expression of such beatitude that his abiding doubt began to waver. "I just couldn't have kept them!"

"I want you to lunch with me—to-morrow," he said slowly.

"Where?"

"In my apartments. They overlook the park. It's quite delightful."

He watched her eagerly, for eagerness could occasionally show on his face, as a sudden joy may recall a past youth to the face of a mature woman. She considered thoughtfully:

"To-morrow? At what time?"

"At one," he said; and she noticed again the curious gesture of his feminine fingers sliding caressingly over the back of his hand.

"One's all right. I'll be delighted to meet Mrs. Sassoon."

He raised his head with an ironical smile; but the smile fled as he noticed that her face was blankly serious.

"I don't like that!" he said abruptly.

"What?"

"You know very well I am not inviting you to meet my wife."

"What do you want with me, then, Mr. Sassoon?" she said calmly, looking directly at him with her cloudy blue eyes of a child.

He rose, nonplused, walked to the window and slowly back. What was she—straightforward or deep? Did she wish to come directly to a business understanding, or—or was she truly independent and seeking this method to terminate the acquaintance? An instinct warned him of the danger in an answer. He returned, and said, leaning on the mantelpiece:

"Bring a friend, if you wish. I'll have in the Comte de Joncy.... You've aroused his curiosity—"

"At your private apartments?"

"Of course!"

"No!"

"At Tenafly's, then."

"At Tenafly's—down-stairs—yes!"

"A party of four?"

"No. Come to think of it, it'll be more interesting just with you."

This unexpected answer, said in the most natural manner imaginable, perplexed him more than ever. She noticed it, quite delighted at the helplessness of the experienced hunter.

"You won't lunch in a party of four at my apartments, but you will lunch with me alone at a public restaurant."

"Quite so!"

"And your reputation?"

"It isn't a question of reputation—my security! I wouldn't trust you—that's all!"

He didn't choose to discuss this, but sought to give the conversation a different turn.

"You are satisfied with this?" he said, with a sudden crook of his arm.

"You are delightfully direct, aren't you?" she said. "You usually don't have so much trouble coming to an understanding with women, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"I'm curious to see how you live—your room—"

She shook her head.

"That you'll never see."

"But—"

"Oh, yes, I make a difference. There are men you receive in your room, and men you receive always in a parlor, and there's no trouble at all in classifying them!" She jumped up, with a laugh. "And you, with all your experience among my sex, can't make up your mind about me."

"You pay what? Eight—ten—fifteen a week. And you have your automobile," he said, pursuing his idea.

"Ah, that's it! Have I an auto or not? But that's not what you want to know! You want to know if some one gives me an automobile, and, if so, why? Well, have I or haven't I? Find out!"

"You know," he said in his deliberate dragging way, "I don't believe that story about the orchids!"

"What do you mean?" she said, with such a swift turn from provoking malice to erect gravity that he hesitated.

"There was a hundred-dollar bill in that bouquet, Miss Baxter!" he said, changing the attack slightly.

"A hundred!" she said, drawing herself up in surprise and scorn. "Ah! now I understand—everything. So that's why you are here! To get your value!"

"No—no," he protested, confused.

"Now I see it all!" she continued, as if suddenly enlightened. "Of course, such presents are quite in order as mementoes when young ladies of the chorus are entertained by you. But you weren't sure of me? You wanted to know if I would take it! For, of course, that would simplify things, wouldn't it?"

"Do you regret giving it away?" he said, convinced, watching her with his connoisseur gaze.

She stopped.

"That is insulting!" she said, so simply that he never again recurred to the subject. "Now, Mr. Sassoon, I am going to play fair with you. I always do—at first. I am not like other girls. I do play fair. I give one warning—one only—and then, take the consequences!"

"And what is your warning, pretty child?" he said, with a faint echo of excitement in his voice.

"You will lose your time!" she said, dropping him a curtsy. "You wish to know what I am? I won't give you the slightest hint! I may be a desperate adventuress, or I may be a pretty child; but I tell you frankly, now—once only—you had better take your hat and go! You won't?"

He shook his head stubbornly.

"Very well! You will regret it! Only, be very careful what you say to me, and how you say it. Do you understand?"

"And you will lunch with me to-morrow?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Two reasons—to tantalize you, and because I am the most curious little body in the world! There! That's quite frank!" She glanced at the clock, which had gone well past the hour. "Now I must be off—I shall be late, as it is!"

He glanced, in turn, at his watch.

"And I've been keeping a board of directors cursing me for half an hour—very important board," he said, grinning at the thought of their exasperation if they should be privileged to see the cause of his delay.

"Really?" she exclaimed, delightfully flattered. "Then you can keep them waiting some more! Your car's here? Very well; take me up to the Temple Theater, stage entrance."

It was not in his plan thus publicly to accompany her. Not that he cared about his ghost of a reputation! But to arrive thus at a stage entrance, dancing attendance on a little Salamander, savored too much of the dÉbutant, the impressionable and gilded cub. To another woman he would have refused peremptorily, with short excuse, packing her off in the automobile, and going on foot to his destination. But with Miss Baxter he had a feeling that she would exact it, and a fear that somehow she was waiting an excuse to slip from him, a fear of losing her.

"I am waiting!" she said impatiently.

"What for?" he asked, coming abruptly out of his abstraction.

"For you to hand me in, Pasha!"

He gave her his hand hurriedly, capitulated and took his seat in turn. She guessed his reasons, and watched him mockingly, sunk in her corner. The melancholy and the weakness of yesterday were gone; she was again the gay little Salamander, audacious and reckless, sublimely confident in the reserves of her imagination to extricate her from any peril.

"The warning holds until to-morrow morning," she said, her eyes sparkling, the mood dramatized in every eager and malicious expression.

He did not answer, aroused and retreating by turns, uncomfortable, irritated and yet resolved. Had DorÉ known the fires she had kindled and the ends to which he was capable of going, perhaps she would not have felt so audaciously triumphant.

As they swung from Broadway into the crowded, narrow side street, quite a group was before the entrance—a knot of stage-hands loafing outside for a smoke, Blainey himself in conversation with an actress who was speaking to him from another automobile, and three or four of the personnel of the theater awaiting the arrival of the manager.

She forced Sassoon to descend and hand her down—Sassoon rebelling at being thus paraded and recognized. Then, with a fractional nod, she went through the group. All at once some one, making way for her, lifted his hat. She looked up and recognized the one man she did not wish to see her thus in Sassoon's company: Judge Massingale, smiling his impersonal, tolerantly amused smile.