Can you see me sitting there, Mag, in the bright, bare little room, with its electric lights, still in my white dress and big white hat, my pretty jacket fallen on the floor beside me? I could feel the sharp blue eyes of that detective Morris feeding on my miserable face. But I could feel, too, a warmth like wine poured into me from that big fellow's voice. I put my hand up to him and he took it. "If I'm innocent and can prove it, Fred Obermuller, I'll get even with you for--for this." "Do you want to do something for me now?" "Do I?" "Well, if you want to help me, don't sit there looking like the criminal ghost of the girl I know." The blood rushed to my face. Nance Olden, a sniveling coward! Me, showing the white feather--me, whimpering like a whipped puppy--me--Nance Olden! "You know," I smiled up at him, "I never did enjoy getting caught." "Hush! But that's better.... Tell me now--" A buzzer sounded. The blue-eyed detective got up and came over to me. "Chief's ready," he said. "This way." They stopped Obermuller at the door. But he pushed past them. "I want to say just a word to you, Chief," he said. "You remember me. I'm Obermuller, of the Vaudeville. If you'll send those fellows out and let me speak to you just a moment, I'll leave you alone with Miss Olden." The Chief nodded to the blue-eyed detective, and he and the other fellow went out and shut the door behind them. "I want simply to call your attention to the absurdity and unreasonableness of this thing," Obermuller said, leaning up against the Chief's desk, while he threw out his left hand with that big open gesture of his, "and to ask you to bear in mind, no matter what appearances may be, that Miss Olden is the most talented girl on the stage to-day; that in a very short time she will be at the top; that just now she is not suffering for lack of money; that she's not a high-roller, but a determined, hard-working little grind, and that if she did feel like taking a plunge, she knows that she could get all she wants from me even--" "Even if you can't pay salaries when they're due, Obermuller." The Chief grinned under his white mustache. "Even though the Trust is pushing me to the wall; going to such lengths that they're liable criminally as well as civilly, if I could only get my hands on proof of their rascality. It's true I can't pay salaries always when they're due, but I can still raise a few hundred to help a friend. And Miss Olden is a friend of mine. If you can prove that she took this money, you prove only that she's gone mad, but you don't--" "All right, Obermuller. You're not the lawyer for the defense. That'll come later--if it does come. I'll be glad to bear in mind all you've said, and much that you haven't." "Thank you. Good night.... I'll wait for you, Nance, outside."