I turned and glanced at him casually and was struck with the singular change that had come over his face. It was as if he had suddenly drawn a fine mask over it. His eyes were calmly fixed on me, yet I could hardly have said that they saw me. His countenance was absolutely expressionless. I have seen the same detached look in a big cat's eyes as he gazed through his bars and through the crowd before him to the far jungle, ocean spaces away. It gave me a sudden shiver and I may have shown that I was startled, but, as I looked, the mask disappeared before my eyes and he was smiling as before. "Got a pretty daughter?" he said with a manner which offended me, I could hardly tell why. "I believe so; but I do not know her." I was angry with myself for blushing, and it was plain that he saw it and did not believe me. "You know a man 't calls himself Count Pushkin?" "Yes, I know him." "He knows her and she knows him." "Does she? I know nothing about that." "Kind o' makin' a set for him, they say?" "Is she? I hardly think it likely, if she knows him," I said coldly. I wondered with what malignant intuition he had read my thoughts. "Oh! A good many people do that. They like the sound. It gives 'em power." "Power!" "Yes. Power's a pretty good thing to have. You can--" He looked out of the window and licked his lips in a sort of reverie. He suddenly opened and closed his hand with a gesture of crushing. "Power and money go togither?" And still smiling, with a farewell nod, he noiselessly withdrew and closed the door. When he was gone I was conscious of a feeling of intense relief, and also of intense antagonism--a feeling I had never had for but one man before--Peck: a feeling which I never got rid of. One evening a little later I missed Dix. He usually came home even when he strayed off, which was not often, unless as happened he went with Elsa, for whom he had conceived a great fondness, and who loved and petted him in return. It had come to be a great bond between the girl and me, and I think the whole family liked me the better for the dog's love of the daughter. But this evening he did not appear; I knew he was not with Elsa, for I remembered he had been in my office during the afternoon, and in consequence I spent an unhappy night. All sorts of visions floated before my mind, from the prize-ring to the vivisection table. I rather inclined to the former; for I knew his powerful chest and loins and his scarred shoulders would commend him to the fancy. I thought I remembered that he had gone out of my office just before I left and had gone down the steps which led to the alley I have mentioned. This he sometimes did. I recalled that I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and had not seen or thought of him between the office and my home.