"It's a big crowd below, and we'll be lost in it. I've learned already that you can be discreet. We'll drop down in there, where no one knows us. We'll try ourselves out, and see whether we'll do, here where the test is hardest. You're ambitious? So am I. This is the heart of the world--the place of gratified ambitions. What do you say, Miss Delaware? I've been looking around down there, and as nearly as I can see, I'm the only man in this avenue worth a million dollars who at this precise moment of the day isn't talking to some good-looking woman!" "You flatter me!" commented the girl. He did not endeavor any analysis. "Not in the least! I simply talk sense and business to you. I covet what you covet, love what you love, want what you want. Things which are equal to the same thing ought to be equal to each other--for just a little while, Miss Delaware. Isn't it true? If it is only play, why, let's play at it. "I forgot to tell you," he added, "that my son-in-law, Mr. Halsey, has gone back to Chicago. He was summoned by wire. No one else knows us both. There wouldn't be one chance in many of our being seen by any one here who knew either of us, and if so, what harm? We'll go and dine as well as the best of them, in the main room. What do you say, Miss Delaware?" X She stood facing him now, seeming years older than she had a few moments before. A very skilled observer might possibly have suspected a certain new quality in the calmness of her eye. Beautiful she certainly was; alluring, irresistible in the ancient appeal of woman, she certainly ought to have been, and would have been to any but this particular man who now stood facing her, half smiling; a man of middle age, gray about the temples, of heavy-browed eyes, strongly lined face, of strong and bony frame; not an ill-looking or unmanly man one might have said, though years older than this young woman who stood now threading between her fingers the filmy moonshine chain which suspended the points of flame that rose and fell upon her bosom. At last she said, hesitating, and holding up the flaming pendant, "I'm not to keep them?" "No, Marguerite!" he smiled. "This particular Papa Faust retains a string on those jewels. They have been seen elsewhere, my dear girl. No, one night's use of them is all this business proposition carries, my dear." He began to be just a shade more familiar; but she looked at him, still curiously helpless, because she found him strong where most men are weak and defenseless. He caught some sort of challenge in her attitude and in spite of himself trod a half step forward.... She evaded him. He heard her laughter rippling in the hall, and followed.... Soon they were in the crowded lift, packed in against shirt front and aigrette, silks and jewels, arms and bosoms bared for the evening's fray. XI