He handed her the check-book. She examined the stubs, then gazed at him in stupefaction. “Why!” she said breathlessly,--“why--over one hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars!” “Sure!” He grinned delightedly. “Am I good for five hundred--eh, Nina?” “I beg your pardon, Jack. Why--I never dreamed-- Then, of course, it will be all right if I make them as much as five hundred each.” Her face broke into a sudden, naïve smile. “And I tell you what, Jack,--I’ll make them payable to ‘Cash,’ then I won’t have to endorse them nor will anybody else--and if anybody wants to start a scandal, why, nobody that sees them will ever suspect, and certainly not be able to prove, that I got money from you. It’ll protect both of us.” Nina seemed to have another inspiration--a very business-like one. “And what’s more, I’ll just fill these in now and have it all done with. Peter, let me have your fountain pen. Thanks. And, Jack, while I’m writing, you might pour me a fresh glass, and yourself one, and one for the others--that’s a dear boy. Remember you’re the host.” While Jack was unsteadily doing a host’s duty, decanting almost as much of the amber fluid upon the cloth as into the glasses, Nina filled out the checks; and as she wrote she three times repeated aloud: “Payable to--Cash--Five--Hundred--Dollars.” She returned Loveman’s pen, waved the checks daintily until the ink had dried, then slipped them within her sex’s invariable postal box. Loveman glanced at his watch and rose briskly. “Excuse me a minute or so,” he said. “I promised to call up a party at two o’clock, and it’s almost half after.” He disappeared through the heavily curtained doorway through which he had entered. The next moment he reappeared. “Nina, just as I started to use the ’phone, there came a call for you. A woman, but she refused to give her name.” When Nina had stepped into the hall and the heavy curtains had swung behind her, Loveman silently held out his right hand. Also in silence Nina reached within the bosom of her gown, drew out the checks and handed them to him. He unfolded them, scrutinized them sharply, refolded them, and slipped them into an inner pocket. “Nina, you certainly did it great,” he said in a whisper. “If you were as good on the stage as you are in a play like this, Dave Belasco would be paying you a thousand a week. Great stuff, Nina!” And then rapidly: “Go on back in. Remember you’ve got to keep him going for two days. He mustn’t suspect a thing, and we’ve got to keep him out of the way until these checks go through.” “I understand,” and silently that excellent off-stage actress reëntered the drawing-room. Beneath the stairway of Le Bain’s house of a hundred precautions was an item which on occasions helped measurably toward the ultra-private pleasures of his guests--a telephone installed in a closet. Loveman stepped through the door of this, closed it, and after a wait was speaking to Mary Regan at the Mordona--speaking in a well-mimicked voice:--