The actress slowly walked to the fire and threw away the cigarette she had been smoking. “Well, I guess we understand each other,” she said in a less truculent voice. “I think we do!” “You are a curious sort of idiot,” she remarked musingly. “I don’t see why we should fight. There’s enough money for two from what the papers say about that mine.” “There’s a great deal more than enough for two,” Brainard laughed, “in one sense, but only enough for one in another—the right one,” he added meaningly. The actress watched him closely as he crossed the room to straighten a picture that hung awry on the wall. She swayed gently to and fro in the vulgar pose of the heroine of _The Stolen Bonds_, looking into the fire. When she glanced up she saw that Brainard was observing her, a slight smile on his lips. He was thinking that she had the temperament that might have made a good actress, but had been hopelessly spoiled by her bringing up and environment. “Well?” he said. “Are you ready with the proof?” “You are a queer sort of Willy,” she replied. “I don’t believe you and me can ever rightly understand each other.” “I think I understand _you_,” Brainard laughed; “you want Krutzmacht’s money—that is quite intelligible! And you may not think so, but I am sorry for you—I would really like to help you out—get a better position for you!” “But you won’t divide!” “Never—all or nothing.” “Do you know where I’m going to-night when I leave your swell little house? Over on Second Avenue into a third-class hotel where my mother and I get along with one bedroom between us. Hollinger don’t pay any big salaries!” “I am sorry.” “Krutzmacht treated me like most men treat women they’ve got cheap. I had no reason to be loyal to him, as I told you.” “Unless,” Brainard suggested lightly, “you happened to be his wife!” Miss Walters ignored the implication and continued explanatorily: “When we lost you at Vera Cruz, and the railroad men I was working for had no more use for me, I was down and out. There didn’t seem to be anything for anybody from Krutzmacht’s money except what the Germans got and you! So I went into the show that I told you of. But it seems there was a good deal more property I didn’t know about—he was always close mouthed. You were clever enough to find that mine and keep it for yourself. . . . It wasn’t until you struck New York that anybody heard about it. Then the papers and the magazines were full of it and of you and of all the money you were throwing away on a theater.” “Publicity is one of the penalties of success,” Brainard observed. “It helped me to find you!” Brainard bowed in acknowledgment. “You don’t want any more trouble?” she suggested in a gentler tone than she had previously used. “Don’t mind trouble,” Brainard retorted quickly. “If I was content with a half million—” “Why not make it two?” XI