In Mrs. Pallet-Searing's house on Fifth Avenue was an authorised hiding-place intended, evidently, for no more than two persons, which was reached by a short journey through the interior flower-garden: an undignified plunge between some half-dozen palm-tubs, and a short ascent up a wide, circular staircase.

In this haven—known only to the initiated,—a week later, Eliot Beekman and Leslie Wilkinson had been sitting for some time.

"We must have been here three hours!" the girl suddenly exclaimed in tones of deep contrition. "Half the people must have gone. I've deliberately cut every man on the last half of my card," she rattled on., "thereby completely ruining my chances of ever marrying any of them; and besides," she concluded limply, "what will Mrs. Pallet-Searing have to say ..."

"How did we get here anyway?" questioned the young man.

"I led the way," confessed the girl, opining wide her eyes, and glancing daringly into his. "Mrs. Pallet-Searing says that this place is a trap; and, that Pallet-Searing says, that she's a terribly designing woman. She says that he says that more—more matches have been made on account of this moonlit spot than in any other place in the Borough of Manhattan."

The face of Eliot Beekman flushed, his eyes were unnaturally bright. If only he had dared, with his strong right arm he would have drawn the dainty head of Leslie Wilkinson down on his shoulder and would have kissed her then and there. But he understood the girl too well—or thought he did.

"A match-making cosy-corner," he mused. "How many others have you fetched here before—have preceded me?"

Leslie laughingly rose and stood looking down upon him.

"You're quite the first, I assure you, Mr. Beekman," she answered, still smiling.

"Are you—are you sure?" he faltered, becoming suddenly serious.

"Quite sure," she answered, catching his mood.

Beekman rose, the flush deepening on his face. His breath came fast.

"Why, then——" he began; but the girl quickly held up her hand.

"Now, don't be silly, don't!" she pleaded. "We've been foolish enough as it is. People will talk, you know; they'll say that it's the get-rich-quick strain in me that makes me do these ill-bred, extraordinary things. But indeed it is not. My own mother, Mr. Beekman," she went on soberly, "was a charming woman—a lady who would never have associated with some of the people that one meets here, even. It must be the pure deviltry in me that makes me do some things—pure deviltry, I assure you, that's all."

"To lead some impecunious devil to the most exclusive match-making place in America, and then refuse to.... Pure deviltry! I should think——"

Leslie's brow wrinkled.

"But Mrs. Pallet-Searing? What is she going to say?" broke in the girl.

"Say! Say nothing at all, of course. She and Pallet-Searing must have occupied similar cosy-corners, I suppose, years ago," he answered, with a smile.

"I don't quite see the application," returned Leslie, puzzled. "Very likely they had the right: they were engaged, and afterwards married."

"True," said Beekman, his eyes feasting on her. "And I don't understand why history can't repeat itself right here and now. The fact is, your hostess will be disappointed—will be annoyed, I'm sure, at our stupidity, if we do not make the most of our opportunity."

Leslie smiled a glorious smile upon him.

"Mr. Beekman," she whispered softly, "do you think we've been so very stupid?"

She touched him lightly on the arm. He tried to seize her hand, but she drew it from him.

"I don't believe," he said, "that we've got any right to leave this fascinating retreat, and go down and face the crowd without being—well, without being engaged. That is, according to my idea of the Pallet-Searings' idea, we'd be considered a dull young couple, to say the least."

"But I'd be cutting myself out of many a delightful hour here!" Leslie shook her head.

"Not necessarily," he persisted.

She tilted her head critically.

"And this is all I'm to get for sitting out the best part of an evening with a girl, when I might have been down there with the madding crowd, having the time of my life," he added.

Leslie moved to go.

"We've made several false starts from here," she reminded him, "but we must go now without any further hesitation, and by separate routes. Good-bye," she said, and held out her hand. "Shall I see you at the landing-place at eight o'clock sharp in the morning?"

Beekman drew her back.

"At what landing-place?" he demanded, uncertain of her meaning. "What's going on?"

The girl fell back helplessly before him.

"Do you mean to tell me," she sighed forlornly, "that I have been here all this time with you without telling you the very thing I brought you here to tell?"

"I only know," he returned, likewise forlornly, "that you won't let me tell you the thing that for hours I've been trying to tell."

Leslie laughed gaily.

"It was very delightful listening, anyway," she admitted frankly. "But about this other thing—I told everybody here, that is, everybody that's to go, but you—and you, why I wanted you the most of all."

Beekman caught her hand and held it, despite her dignified little struggle.

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure," she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You need a little tan—the sail would do you good. Why, twenty of us boys and girls,—besides some half-dozen chaperones—are going for the week-end on the Marchioness. Away out to sea as far as she can stand it, and back again. It ought to be good fun! There'll be only congenial people aboard—the right men for the right girls."

"But for yourself, Miss Wilkinson, who——"

"My dear young friend," she broke in upon his question, "inasmuch as I am hostess, I see no reason why I shouldn't have the whole ten men most of the time, do you? I'm a pretty fair manager about these things, you know," she went on interestedly, "and I thought for you that Jane Gerard...."

Beekman coughed slightly and glanced at his watch.

"A most delightful trip," he conceded, "and I should be glad, awfully glad to be able to take advantage of the opportunity if it were not that I am so very busy, and——"

Leslie was quick to detect his annoyance, but went on, still flirtatiously:

"Of course, I could pair off Jane Gerard with Larry Pendexter, though I was thinking of keeping him myself...." She pursed her lips, and stood for a moment with her eyes half-closed. Presently, she said: "I think maybe it could be arranged." And laughing, now, added: "You'll surely come, won't you?"

"Come!" he exclaimed, beaming with joy. "I'd come in the face of a million-dollar retainer from John D. Rockefeller—I would, indeed!"

A few minutes later, when she faced her hostess to bid her good-night, that estimable lady, not altogether satisfied with Leslie's nonchalant manner, laid her hand on her young guest's shoulder, and drew her to one side.

"I hope, my dear," she said insinuatingly, "that it's not going to be Eliot Beekman. He's all right, little one—handsome, and clean, too. But what you need is money—don't forget that—particularly now. Take my advice—Eliot is dangerous." The lady sighed. "I've known such men—I knew one of them once." Her eyes sought the portly form of Pallet-Searing across the big room. "And I married Pallet-Searing. It's been worth while." But there was a sigh in her voice, the girl thought, as she repeated again, "worth while. Run along now! Mrs. Wilkinson has been looking everywhere for you. Even Peter V. looked in to take you home. They've both gone. But here comes Eliot now." And turning to Beekman, the lady shook her finger at him. "I've been warning Leslie against you, Eliot," she said, frankly, telling him to his face what she had said behind his back. "I've been warning her that she must look for money. And, oh, by the way, Eliot! Somebody's been here after you to-night. We searched everywhere for you except in one place, and nobody is ever allowed to look there. Colonel Morehead is the man."

Beekman started.

"You don't by any chance happen to know——"

"Business," interposed Mrs. Pallet-Searing; "at least, he said it was."

Beekman gave vent to a slight gesture of annoyance.

"I wish I might have seen him. But he's gone, I suppose?"

Mrs. Pallet-Searing laughed outright.

"You surely don't regret the fact that we couldn't find you, Eliot?"

Beekman laughed sheepishly, and shot a glance of guilt toward Leslie.

"That isn't the point. It simply gives me an involuntary pang when somebody looks me up on business and I miss them. I have a feeling that, somehow, I may have lost an opportunity; and chaps like me can't well afford to miss a man like Colonel Morehead."

" ... How are you going to get home, child?" suddenly asked her hostess of Leslie. "Your machine is out there, but——"

Leslie hesitated for an instant.

"Possibly Mr. Beekman ..." she laughed mischievously.

Beekman looked up with mock gravity.

"Miss Wilkinson," he said, "you've heard that old saying about the game and the name? Come!" And he took her by the arm.

Mrs. Pallet-Searing watched the happy young couple leave her house, and her face took on an expression little in accord with the worldly and cynical advice that she had given the girl a few moments before.

From her corner of the limousine Leslie confided to Beekman:

"Do you know that every time I do something, have something, or give something, now that we live on Bankrupt Row, up there on the Drive, I have to explain to everybody that it's my money, and not my father's, as most people imagine."

"I wish I could do something for you or your father, but I'm only an atom of an aggregation here in New York, confound it!"

Leslie looked at him gratefully, but went on:

"My money must support the family. Father lost everything he had."

"I—I didn't know that you had any money." He laughed uncomfortably. "I'm one of these chaps who has to blurt things out, Miss Wilkinson, and so I'll tell you just what I thought. Of course I didn't really want Peter V. Wilkinson to fail—I was sorry when I heard about it. But when I knew it had to happen, that it was inevitable—Oh, confound it, I was glad, and for my own selfish reason."

"Very kind of you to gloat over our misfortune," was her brief comment, uttered by no means seriously.

"I thought," went on Beekman, grimly, "that it would put us more on an equal footing, that perhaps I would have the right to——"

"Oh, the right, did you say? I never thought you worried much over that," she said with truly feminine perversity.

There was a pause. Beekman was the first to speak.

"A terribly complicated matter, this making love to a rich girl. In the first place——"

"Is this an argument before a court?" she inquired, playfully.

"Before the last court of appeals," he answered quickly. "And the gist of it is this: How the deuce can a rich girl ever know that anybody ever loves her?"

"Do you suppose she cannot tell?"

"You can't. Look at the rich women who have been fooled—either fooled, or else satisfied to be sought for what they've got and not for what they are! You know them by the score."

"I think I should know if anyone loved me."

The man shook his head.

"There is only one way to make the perfect test," he told her, "and that's impossible. To rid yourself of every dollar for all time, and then see what happens."

The girl made no answer.

"Yes," he went on, "of all the women in the world, the rich American girl, in my opinion, stands the least chance to be mated as she should be. If she marries money, ten chances to one it's money she marries and not a man; if she marries a beggar, she gets an adventurer. The reason for this, is: the honest American men will not aspire to the hand of a girl of wealth; and those are the very men that the rich girl ought to marry. Unfortunately, however, they are just as independent in their way as she is in hers. You ought to come down and be poor," he concluded, helping her to alight, for the limousine was now in front of the Wilkinson house.

They crossed the pavement to the doorway. There she asked:

"Do you know any honest, poor man, who will——" She broke off abruptly, recognising her audacity, and then added: "Don't forget, at eight to-morrow morning. Those not on time will get left—for at two minutes past eight the Marchioness will be out in the middle of the Hudson. Until then,"—and she gave him her hand,—"at the landing——"

"Not at the landing," he broke in. "I'm going to start from here. I'll call for you just to see that Larry Pendexter keeps himself to himself, or at least to Jane Gerard. Is it a go?"

Leslie did not answer. Instead she flashed him a bewildering smile as she passed through the door which Jeffries held open for her.

Half way down the hall, Leslie ran into Roy Pallister. His face was haggard and unduly white. She started back as she saw him.

"Why, Roy!" she cried, unconsciously calling him by his first name; "what has happened?"

The boy flushed as his name fell from her lips.

"Miss Leslie," he began stumblingly, seemingly embarrassed by the searching gaze she rested on him, "nothing—that is, nothing that's imminent. Your——"

"My father!" she queried. "Has anything——"

"They," pointing to the floor above, "seem to treat it lightly. I'm a beast for frightening you; but I think your father feels—fears——"

"Mr. Pallister, what are you keeping from me? What is the matter?"

The gentle little fellow steadied himself for a moment against the wall, and then, as she made a movement to go, he drew her back.

"Miss Leslie, I've been wanting to tell you something—I've been waiting for the chance. If ever in the future you need help—help of any kind, you'll let me know," he said with lips that trembled. "I want to be sure that you understand just what I mean. I've never done anything for you, Miss Leslie, and——"

"Why, yes you have; indeed you have...." she assured him, and her look was one of genuine affection.

The boy shook his head.

"I want your promise that you'll come to me if——"

Leslie did not wait to hear any more, but breaking from him, ran swiftly up the stairs. At the first landing she turned and looked back: he was standing very straight and very quiet by the newel post, glancing up at her with intense admiration. In a flash she was back to the foot of the stairs holding out her hand to him.

"I promise, Roy," she said impulsively. "You're the best-hearted fellow going! Good-night!"

At the door of her step-mother's apartment, Leslie paused. A babel of voices came from behind the closed doors—the voices of many men and one woman. Quickly in answer to her knock and question "May I come in?" the door was thrown back, and Flomerfelt, her father's confidential man, stood framed in the doorway, bowing elaborately. In a glance, despite the haze of cigar smoke, she saw that the company consisted of her father, her father's wife, and another man. With a glad cry, she rushed over to this other man and grasped his hand.

"Colonel Morehead! The sight of you...."

In an instant, Colonel Morehead's thin lips parted in a smile. He made an old-fashioned bow and then sank back into his chair.

"You were at Amy Pallet-Searing's to-night," the girl went on, "and you never looked me up. Be good enough to explain yourself, sir!"

Colonel Morehead removed his glasses and polished them upon his handkerchief before answering:

"I was busy looking up somebody else," he said, and Leslie saw that the smile had left his face as he resumed his tap-tapping on the table with his fingers; she saw, too, that her father's face was a bit white where the skin showed. He looked tired, but his thick Van Dyke bristled aggressively, and his eyebrows breathed the usual defiance.

"Where were you, Leslie, that we couldn't find you anywhere?" demanded her step-mother, irritably. "How did you get home?"

"Very comfortably in the limousine, thank you," replied Leslie. "Mr. Beekman was good enough——"

Colonel Morehead leaped to his feet.

"Not Eliot Beekman! What? He came home with you?" He started for the door. "Why, he's the man I've been looking for. Where is he now?"

"Undoubtedly home, by this time," said Leslie.

The Colonel again reseated himself and drummed loudly with his fingers.

"Hang it!" he ejaculated. "If I'd only known.... He could have been with us here now. We need him—and badly."

Wilkinson looked puzzled.

"Why do we need him?" Wilkinson asked the question in a voice in which excitement still held sway.

"That's what I should like to know!" put in Mrs. Wilkinson, gulping down, not without audible satisfaction, her customary night-cap.

Leslie blushed as she added that the question likewise was of interest to her.

"We're disgraced, that's all there is to it!" snapped the mistress of the house, her night-cap, even at this early stage, lending her asperity. "And I the most of all! I don't see how this Beekman can help us out?"

"I don't myself," admitted her husband. "However, nothing can happen so long as Colonel Morehead sticks to us—nothing."

"I have no intention of deserting you, don't be alarmed," declared Colonel Morehead. "But for all that, I want this man Beekman—I need him." And so saying he lifted from the small table a document consisting of several sheets of carbon-copy.

"Miss Wilkinson," he said gravely, handing it to her. "No—there's nothing in it to startle you, only you should know, I think, we all ought to understand.... If you'll read this, you'll know what happened to your father this afternoon."

Puzzled at first, the girl slowly read the flimsy document as she stood there in the middle of the room.

"Oh!" she wailed, as its meaning dawned upon her. "They had no right to do this—no right whatever!"

"You're sure you understand it?" interrogated the Colonel.

The girl bowed her head gravely. Then, going over to her father,—wholly unconscious of a curious look on Flomerfelt's face,—she threw her arms about his neck.

"Father, dear father," she whispered to him, "don't mind. We'll win out."

Her father submitted goodnaturedly but wearily to her embrace. He stretched his arms and yawned.

"I'm dog tired," he said, rising. "I'm going to bed. You'll stay all night, Morehead?"

"Not a bit of it," responded the Colonel. "You don't catch me deserting my own hard bed—not much! I'll go home." He shook hands with Mrs. Peter V. Wilkinson, and pressed a button.

"How about you, Flomerfelt? It's rather late ..." said Peter V.

"Don't care if I do," was the latter's answer. And on the servant's appearing, Peter V. ordered him to show Mr. Flomerfelt to one of the guest rooms, concluding with: "Show him to the one with the painted nymphs skylarking on the walls." Then he placed his arm around his daughter, and together they followed Colonel Morehead downstairs to the door, where they bade him good-night.

Mrs. Wilkinson and Flomerfelt listened to the sound of retreating footsteps.

"He'll not be coming back," she said, "and I want to talk to you." And pointing to the document that Leslie had been shown, she asked: "What does all this signify?"

"What it signifies," he answered, picking up the paper, "may depend on you."

The woman looked puzzled.

"How?"

Flomerfelt's eyes narrowed. Then, with a lithe and dexterous movement of his long arms, he shot his cuffs—hitherto out of sight—into view; extending them, with a jerk, below his coat-sleeves, so that they covered his lean wrists to the extent of three-quarters of an inch, a distance which he measured with mathematical certainty, apparently, for his nice adjustment of them was followed critically by his glance. He eyed and adjusted one cuff until it satisfied him, and then eyed and adjusted the other; finally he rubbed his hands together, and said:

"One of the richest women in the world—rich in her own right. How does that sound to you?"

Mrs. Peter V. stared at him.

"Who is?" she inquired.

"It's a possibility that affects a woman in this house."

"Leslie?"

He shook his head.

"I was thinking of you."

"I? I'm not rich. I've been a fool!" she cried. "I should have made him settle something on me—half, at any rate. Now it's all gone; he's lost everything; I might as well have had half of it—as well that, as to throw it in the gutter as he did."

Wilkinson's confidential man seated himself.

"Unquestionably you need me," he said frankly, and then stopped. Hitherto he had kept his own counsel. And yet, he reflected, there is a wisdom of disclosure just as there is a wisdom of suppression. Some new impulse seized him; his voice sank into a whisper. "There is a chance for us, Mrs. Peter V., to be rich, if we work together, unusually rich."

"But how?" she whispered back, excitedly.

Flomerfelt smiled inscrutably, and answered:

"Out of the wreck, there's a chance——"

"A good chance?" she interrupted eagerly.

"There's only one man who can prevent it," he went on.

"Peter V.——?"

A nod was her answer.

Immediately then she went back to first principles.

"What is going to happen to him? Will they put him in jail?"

Wilkinson's confidential man smiled.

"I've often wondered," he mused, "whether it would be good or bad for us if they jailed him. A man in prison is a man very much out of the way. But in this case he would be too much out of the way. Put him in jail and you discourage his defence—you encourage the public, his depositors. They'll do what we should do: infest the wreck and gobble up what is ours by right. No, so long as Peter Wilkinson lives, we must fight his battle for him—pull him through, keep him standing up, only to be able to knock him down later. That, so long as he lives, must be our policy. So long as he lives," he repeated.

"Suppose," she began, and then hazarded: "In case of his death, what would my rights be?"

"In case he dies——" suddenly he stopped. That was a possibility he had not foreseen. He had seen much strife ahead: first, a tremendous fight for Wilkinson, then a tremendous campaign against him. But what if the man should break down, die? There was food for thought, reasoned Flomerfelt.

"He might die," he resumed, holding her glance as he went on, "for everything must be considered. Disgrace wouldn't kill him, but his liver, or,——" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder,—"there might be violence—conspiracies. There have been rumours that the trust company depositors are wild, especially the poor ones—socialists, we'll say. So, he might die—be killed. Who knows?"

Flomerfelt rose and looked down upon her long and earnestly.

"But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Mrs. Peter V. Good-night, my dear lady!" And bowing unusually low to her, he left the room.