The silencer which Pape put upon certain questions exploding in his mind—pertinent questions such as what was the nature of “it,” who were “they,” why should another hour last night have made all “known”?—was the result of a new-made decision on his own account. He would teach this determinedly untrusting young person by demonstration; would aspire only to such confidence as she saw fit to volunteer. The hope that telepathy already was at work strengthened him to meet manfully her calm, cold gaze when at last she faced him. “You say you want to make up for——” She caught her breath and started afresh. “I am willing to—to learn—if I can. But some women might consider that you owed quite a bit.” “I am—” and he bent his head, the better to see her lips—“very deeply in your debt.” In spite of her flush, she continued crisply. “Very well, I am going to ask you for part payment.” “And I am only too willing, Jane, to pay in full.” She studied his serio-flippancy; evidently decided to value his statement above his smile. “I need about one hour of dusk to finish in there. I could finish to-night if that gang could be driven off now, before they find—what I hope to find first. Can’t you—won’t you try to frighten them off?” “I? What right have I——” One of two things was certain. Either she thought very little of the courage of the four or very much of his frightsomeness. He did feel indebted to her, though; appreciated the born-and-bred conventionality which she had overcome at his request. When he compared the scathing, stereotyped things she might have said with the fact that she had said nothing at all—well, despite the confusions since that Zaza night, including the man over on East Sixty-third Street, she was—she must be the sort she at first had seemed. He shrugged off his own dubiousness and looked as hopeful as he could. “Once you pretended to be a detective,” she encouraged him. “Got a supper out of that.” “Last night you were again taken for one.” “And had a scrap that was lively while it lasted.” “This much you may assume. Something important—something more valuable, really, than any treasure that could be buried in the whole length of Manhattan Isle—something more than you possibly could imagine is at stake. It doesn’t matter what or why or how, but try to do what I ask. Get those hired looters out!” “Get them out?” he objected, “Girl-alive, they have a right to be digging in there or they wouldn’t dare to come in force and in daylight. I’d need some authority to object before I could— Will you stay right here?” Instead of vaulting the park wall, which at first had, seemed to be the one possible response to her demand, Pape lifted his hat and sauntered down the avenue as though bound nowhere in particular. CHAPTER XIV—THE CREDIT PLAN