Automatically, swiftly, Clifford’s mind flashed forward in search of possible weapons, of direct and devious schemes, that the fertile-brained Bradley might be contriving against him. CHAPTER II THE RETURN OF MARY REGAN Suddenly all conjectures concerning Bradley were swept utterly from his mind. Down the gilded red-carpeted stairway that led from what the Grand Alcazar termed its “ballroom de luxe,” there came--though this was not the figure Clifford first noted--a short, full-bodied, ornately dressed man, with a bald crown and a smile of engaging amiability. Beside him, and a half-head taller,--and this is what Clifford first saw,--walked a slender young woman, in an evening coat of rose velvet, her rounded throat gleaming a dusky marble from the soft shadows of the furred collar. Her face was the rose-tan of early autumn leaves, and her dark eyes gazed straight before her with a composure so complete that it seemed to announce a haughty indifference to all the world. “Mary Regan!” ejaculated Clifford, stupefied. Uncle George seemed not the least startled by Clifford’s exclamation. He turned--and then there was surprise enough in his voice:-- “Hello--Peter Loveman with her!” Clifford, recovered from his brief paralysis, arose and hurried between the tables. But the pair had already turned into the entrance and did not note him. As Clifford came into the gilded and bepalmed lobby, he saw her, aided by four eager Grand Alcazar flunkeys and by Loveman, looking a grotesquely small grand opera impresario in his silk hat and fur coat, stepping into a closed car. By running Clifford could have caught her, or by calling he could have gained her attention. But at that instant he remembered the essence of their bargain, that he should make no attempt to seek her out until she sent for him. That remembrance checked him; the door closed upon the rose-velvet figure, the car slid off through Broadway’s incandescent brilliance, and she was gone.