David had not gone to interview Jenny the day before in obedience to Miss L’Estrange’s first note, because of the sullen humor to which he relapsed after his experiences at three in the morning in the streets of London. He resented the visiting of the glimpses of the moon by a young lady who donned rubber overshoes before re-entering her house, and he said to himself: “The day’s work, and skip the Violets.”

Then, the next morning, came Miss L’Estrange’s second letter—“he must see Jenny not later than half-past nine” or he would be “too late.” Again this failed to rouse him. With those lazy, lithe movements of the body which characterized him, he strolled for some time about the flat after his early breakfast, uncertain what to do. He saw, indeed, that some one else must be after the certificates—Strauss—Van Hupfeldt—if Strauss and Van Hupfeldt were one; but still he halted between two opinions, thinking: “Where do I come in, anyway?”

Then again the face which he had seen at the grave rose before him with silent pleadings, a face touching to a man’s heart, with dry rose-leaf lips which she had a way of wetting quickly, and in her cheeks a die-away touch of the peach, purplish like white violets. And how did he know, the jealous youth, by what hundred reasons her nightly wandering might be accounted for? Why did he nourish that sort of resentment against a girl who was a perfect stranger? Perhaps there was really some jealousy in it! At which thought he laughed aloud, and suddenly darted into action, snatched a hat, and went flying. But then it was already past nine.

When he reached Miss L’Estrange’s flat, for some time no one answered his ring, and then the door opened but a little way to let out a voice which said: “What is it? I am not dressed. She’s gone. I told you you’d be too late.”

“Is she gone?” said David, blankly, eager enough now to see her.

“Look here, why should I be bothered with the lot of you at this ungodly hour of the morning?” cried the fickle L’Estrange. “I can’t help your troubles! Can’t you see when anybody is in bed?”

“But why did you let her go before I came?” asked David.

“You are cool! Am I your mother?”

“I wish you were for this once.”

“Nice mother and son we little two would make, wouldn’t we?”

“That’s not the point. I’m afraid you are getting cold. You ought to have contrived to keep the girl till I came, though it is my own fault. But can’t anything be done now? Where is she gone to?”

“To Strauss, of course.”

“With the certificates?”

“I suppose so. I know nothing about it, and care less. I did try to keep her back a bit for your sake, but she was pretty keen to be gone to him when once she had his address, the underhanded little wretch!”

“But stop—how long is it since she has gone?”

“Not three minutes. It’s just possible that you might catch her up, if you look alive.”

“How can that be? I shouldn’t know her. I have never seen her. We may have passed each other in the street.”

“Listen. She is a small, slim girl with nearly white hair and little Chinese eyes. She has on a blue serge skirt with my old astrakhan bolero and a sailor hat. Now you can’t miss her.”

“But which way? Where does Strauss live?”

“I promised not to tell, and I’m always as good as my word,” cried the reliable Miss Ermyn L’Estrange, “but between you and me, it’s not a thousand miles from Piccadilly Circus; and that is where Jenny will get down off her bus; so if you take a cab—”

“Excellent. Good-by! See you again!” said David.

David was gone, in a heat of action. He took no cab, however, but took to his heels, so that he might be able to spy at the occupants within and on the top of each bus on the line of route, by running a little faster than the vehicles. At this hour London was already out of doors, going shopping, going to office and works. It was a bright morning, like the beginning of spring. People turned their heads to look at the man who ran faster than the horses, and pried into the buses. Victoria, Whitehall, Charing Cross, he passed—still he could see no one quite like Jenny. He began to lose hope, finding, moreover, that running in London was not like running in Wyoming, or even like his run from Bucks. Here the air seemed to lack body and wine. It did not repay the lungs’ effort, nor give back all that was expended, so that in going up the steep of Lower Regent-St. he began to breathe short. Nevertheless, to reward him, there, not far from the Circus, he saw sitting patient in a bus-corner the sailor hat, the bolero, the Chinese eyes, and reddish white hair of Jenny.

The moment she stepped out, two men sprang forward to address her—David and Van Hupfeldt’s valet. Van Hupfeldt lived near the lower portion of Hanover Square, the way to which being rather shut in and odd to one who does not know it, his restlessness had become unbearable when Jenny was a little late, so he had described her to his valet, a whipper-snapper named Neil—for Van Hupfeldt had several times seen Jenny with Miss L’Estrange—and had sent Neil to Piccadilly Circus, where he knew that Jenny would alight, in order to conduct her to his rooms. However, as Neil moved quickly forward, David was before him, and the valet thought to himself: “Hello, this seems to be a case of two’s company and three’s none.”

David was saying to Jenny: “You are Miss L’Estrange’s servant?”

“I am,” answered Jenny.

“She sent me after you. I must speak with you urgently. Come with me.”

Now, in Jenny’s head were visions of nothing less than wealth—wealth which she was eager to handle that hour. She said, therefore, to David: “I don’t know who you are. I can’t go anywhere—”

They stood together on the pavement, with Neil, all unknown to David, behind them listening.

“There’s no saying ‘No,’” insisted David. “You’re going to see Mr. Strauss, aren’t you? Well, I am here instead of Mr. Strauss in this matter.”

But this ambiguous remark failed of its effect, for Neil, whose master had told him that in this affair he was not Van Hupfeldt but Strauss, intervened with the pert words: “Begging your pardon, but I am Strauss.”

However, this short way of explaining that he was there on behalf of Strauss was promptly misunderstood by Jenny, who looked with disdain at the valet, saying: “You are not Mr. Strauss!”

“Of course he isn’t,” said David, quickly. “How dare you, sir, address this lady? Come right away, will you? Come, now. Let’s jump into this cab.”

“Who are you? I don’t even know you!” cried the perplexed Jenny.

“I didn’t say I was Mr. Strauss himself,” began Neil.

“Yes, you did say so,” said Jenny, “and it isn’t the truth, for I know Mr. Strauss very well, and neither of you isn’t going to get over me, so you know!”

“Don’t you see,” suggested David, his wits all at work, “that one of us must be true, and as you are aware that he is false—”

“What is all this about?” demanded Jenny. “I have no business with either of you. Just tell me the way to Hanover Square, please, and let me go about my business.”

“That’s just why I’m here, to show you the way,” said Neil. “I dunno why this gentleman takes it upon himself—”

“Best hold your tongue, young man,” growled David. “You must be stupid to think this young girl would go off with you, a man she never saw before, especially after detecting you in a direct untruth—”

“As for that, she don’t know you any more than me, seemingly,” retorted Neil. “Mr. Strauss sent me—”

“How is she to know that? Miss L’Estrange sent me. Didn’t I know your name, Jenny, and your mistress’s name?”

“Well, that’s right enough,” agreed Jenny on reflection.

“Then trust to me.”

“But what is it you want, sir?”

“It is about the papers,” whispered David, confidentially. “It is all to your good to come with me first and hear what I have to say. Miss L’Estrange—”

“Well, all right; but you must be quick,” said Jenny, rushing to a decision.

David hailed a cab, and he and Jenny turned their backs upon the defeated valet, got in, and drove off. However, Neil, who had witnessed Van Hupfeldt’s fever of eagerness to see this girl, followed in another cab. David drove to the Tube Station near Oxford Circus—she would accompany him no farther—and, while he talked with Jenny in a corner there, Neil, lurking among the crowd of shop-gazers across the street, kept watch.

“I propose to you,” David said to Jenny, “to give the certificates to me, and in doing so, I understand that you are a poor girl—”

“That’s just it,” answered Jenny, “and I must know first how much I am to get for them—if it’s true that I have any certificates.”

“Right enough,” said David, “but the main motive which I hold out to you is not what you will receive in hard cash, but that you will do an immense amount of good, if you give the papers to me. They don’t belong to this Mr. Strauss, but they do belong to the mother and sister of a poor wronged lady, a lady whose character they will clear.”

“Ah, no doubt,” agreed Jenny, with the knowing leer of a born Cockney; “still, a girl has got to look after herself, you see, and not mind other people’s troubles.”

“What!” cried David, “would you rather do the wrong thing and earn twenty pounds, or do the right thing and earn five pounds? You can’t be in earnest saying that.”

“It isn’t a question of five pounds, nor yet of twenty,” snapped Jenny, offended at the mere mention of such paltry sums, “it’s a question of hundreds and of thousands.” Her mouth went big for the “thousands.” “Don’t think that I’m going to part with the papers under high figures, if so be I have any papers.”

“Under what?” asked David—“under hundreds, or under thousands?”

“Under thousands.”

“Now hold on a bit. Are you aware that I could have the papers taken from you this minute, papers that don’t belong to you, which you propose to sell to some one other than the rightful owners?”

At this Jenny changed color. There was a policeman within a few yards, and she saw her great and golden dream dissolving.

“It remains to be seen if I have got any papers. That’s the very question, you see!” she said.

“You might be searched, you know, just to clear the point. Yet you needn’t be afraid of that, for I’m disposed to meet you, and you aren’t going to refuse any reasonable offer, with no trouble from the police to follow. So I offer you now—fifty golden sovereigns for the papers, cash down.”

“You leave me alone,” muttered Jenny, sheepishly, turning her shoulder to him.

“Well, I thought we were going to be friends; but I see that I must act harshly,” David said, making a threatening movement to leave her.

“You can have them for one hundred pounds,” the girl murmured in a frail voice with downcast eyes; to which David, not to drive a hard bargain with her, at once answered: “Well, you shall have your one hundred pounds.”

The next moment, however, he was asking himself: “Who’s to pay? Can I afford these royal extravagances in other people’s affairs? Steady! Not too much Violet!”

He walked a little way from the girl, considering it. He could not afford it. There was no earthly reason why he should. But he might go to Violet, to Mrs. Mordaunt, and obtain the one hundred pounds, or their authorization to spend that sum on their behalf. In that case, however, how make sure of Jenny in the meantime? It would hardly do to leave her there in the station, so near to Strauss. She would be drawn to him as by a magnet, and he thought that if he took her with him to the Mordaunts, she would recover her self-assurance and demand from the women more, perhaps, than they could afford. In the end, he decided to take her to his flat, and leave her there in Mrs. Grover’s charge till he returned from the Mordaunts.

“That’s a bargain, then,” he said to her; “one hundred it is. I take it that you actually have the certificates on you?”

“I may have,” smirked the elusive Jenny.

“That’s all right. ‘Have’ and ‘may have’ are the same things in your case. So now I shall go right away to procure the one hundred pounds, and meantime you’ll come with me to your old flat in Eddystone Mansions—that’s where I live now—No, don’t be scared, there’s some one there besides myself, and the ghost doesn’t walk in the daytime.”

They hailed another cab, and again Neil, leaving his lurking-place, drove after them. He saw David and Jenny go into the mansions, then stood uncertain whether to hurry home and tell the position of affairs to Van Hupfeldt, who, he knew, must by this time be raving, or whether to wait and see if Jenny and David came out again.

He was loitering a little way up the house-stairs, thinking it out, when he heard the lift coming down, and presently he saw David rush out—alone. Jenny, then, was still in the building. Neil ran to the lift-man.

“Gentleman who just come down,” he said, “does he live here?”

“He do, in No. 7,” was the answer.

“Girl’s left in his flat, then,” thought Neil, scratching his head, “and the bloke wot owns the flat don’t know I’ve been spying. I’d better hurry back and let the master know how things are looking.”

Whereat the valet, who was clearer in action than in speech, ran out and took cab to Hanover Square, to tell Van Hupfeldt where Jenny was.