“Bah! all we women are alike,” she sneered. “But if she slyly sends me out?” There was a gloomy pause. “I do not think that she suspects you,” finally answered Vreeland. “Telegraph me here what you dare to. “And bring me all the other news in person. Now, tell me all you know of this very saintly young Mary Kelly.” His voice had the ring of anxiety. “I have had the janitor and the letter-carrier watch her. They are both friends of mine,” modestly murmured Justine. “She lives near us, on a side street, with her old mother. And never goes out with a man, except Officer Daly. Daly, the Roundsman. A _beau garçon_, too; but it may be only a flirtation _Catholique à l’Irelandaise_. “I have often followed her myself to church. And she comes once a week to Madame. They always look over papers together.” “And that smug devil Bagley,” cried Vreeland, “only comes to the door, leaves me the _pacquet_ of bills, and does not even see Madame. He gets an order for the money, and then returns later with the receipted bills.” Justine was back at the Circassia before Vreeland left her rooms to engage in his little joust at poker with Mr. James Potter, whose morning diet of red pepper, cracked ice, and soda water had at last brought him up to the normal, after several sporadic cocktails. All through the quiet duel of cards, Vreeland was haunted by the twin obstacles, Bagley and Miss Mary Kelly. “Bagley is a perfect servant, and I can not get any excuse to rid myself of him. My secrets are not kept where he can reach them,” mused Vreeland. “The girl I surely dare not displace; but I can get around them both, if I have the right kind of a woman here near me. I have the excuse of my ‘outside correspondence’ and social affairs. “Miss Kelly is sacred to the affairs of this cool-headed patroness of mine. And even Elaine can not object. “It would ‘give away’ her veiled espionage on me. Yes, that’s the plan! I can advertise; pick one or two out of a hundred women and then _try them on_,” he craftily smiled, “and only begin my real operations when I have found the right one and the two young women have struck up an intimacy.” He laughed. “My pretty spy shall watch the placid young saint.” Vreeland tossed upon his bed that night, and reflected upon the singular methods of his covert business. A list of stocks sent to him by messenger, or personally delivered by Mrs. Willoughby, to be bought and sold, with seemingly no guiding rule; all the checks signed only by him as “Harold Vreeland, Trustee,” and all the securities daily deposited, after due receipt and tag, in Mrs. Willoughby’s steel vault compartment at the Mineralogical Bank. And she alone knew of gain or loss. He was only a gilded dummy. But one great house guarded all these covert transactions, and the deliveries to them, in case of sales, were always made by an order on the cashier of the Mineralogical.