Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer took a long, long breath; then he sat forward and drew up to the table. "Robbie," he said, "tell me about this business. Tell me all." "First I want the two millions." "Confound you," observed the other. "Don't you know if you want 'em, you'll get 'em? But go on now, and tell me about the thing, and don't be a fool." And so Robbie told him; and before the end of it the elder gentleman was rubbing his hands. Afterwards he hobbled out of the room and mailed a note to his brokers, ordering them to sell his T. & S. holdings at the opening price; also he wrote instructing his bankers that Mr. Robert van Rensselaer was to draw on his credit for three million dollars. * * * * * And in the meantime Mr. Robert van Rensselaer was still pacing up and down the room, his hands behind his back, and a very pleasant look upon his mellow countenance. He was at that moment, beyond question, the happiest and the contentedest man in New York: when all of a sudden there was a knock on the door, and an attendant entered. "A note for you, sir," he said. "It's marked 'Urgent.'" And our friend took it; he waited until the man had gone, and then he opened it, and read this:-- "MR. ROBERT VAN RENSSELAER: "Dear Sir,--Will you kindly request our friend Mr. Green to call this evening upon a matter of the utmost possible urgency to him at the house of his old friend Mrs. Lynch?" XXVII It would not profit to produce the remarks of Robert van Rensselaer upon reading the note. Possibly the reader had imagined that he was through with Mrs. Lynch; certainly, at any rate, Mr. Van Rensselaer had imagined it. But one of the disadvantages about some of the pleasant things of life is this fact that, when we wish to forget them, they are not always willing to forget us. Who had written the letter and what was the purpose of it was a problem which our hero pondered for many hours,--hours which he spent either in pacing up and down the room, or in sitting motionless in a chair, with hands clenched and eyes fixed upon vacancy. When finally he came to a decision, it was evidently a desperate one, for his brow was black and his eyes shone. He strode out of the room, and a moment or so later was whirling up town in a cab. Before long he got out and walked, and when the cab had disappeared, he called another, and entering that drove to the residence of Mary Harrison. She was clad in a pink silk gown, and her cheeks were bright with happiness; she was so altogether wonderful that Robert van Rensselaer's frown half melted, in spite of himself, as he walked into the room. The frown did not go so fast, however, that she failed to note it. "What's the matter?" she cried. And his frown came back again. "Mary," he said abruptly, "we've got to part." The girl gave a start. "What do you mean?" she cried.