Yarnall's guest looked at him without speaking, and Yarnall nervously went on, "She's been with us about six months, Landis, and I don't know anything about her. She was tall, gray eyes, black hair, slow speaking, and with the kind of voice you'd be apt to notice ... yes, I see she's the girl you've been looking for. I can give you the New York people's address, but first, for Jane's sake,--I'm a pretty good friend of hers, I think a lot of Jane,--I'll have to know what you want with her--what she is to you." Pierre's pupils widened till they all but swallowed the smoke-colored iris. "She is my wife," he said. Again Yarnall swore. But he lit a cigarette and took his time about answering. "Well, sir," he said, "you must excuse me, but--it was because she saw you, I take it, that Jane cut off this morning. That's clear. Now, I don't know what would make a girl run off from her husband. She might have any number of reasons, bad and good, but it seems to me that it would be a pretty strong one that would make a girl run off, with a look such as she wore, from a man like you. Did you treat her well, Landis?" It had the effect of a lash taken by a penitent. The man shrank a little, whitened, endured. "I can't tell you how I treated her," he said in a dangerous voice; "it don't bear tellin'. But--I want her back. I was--I was--that was three years ago; I am more like a man now. You'll give me the people's name, their address?..." Pierre laid his hand on the older man's wrist and gave it a queer urgent and beseeching shake. After a moment of searching scrutiny, Yarnall bent his head. "Very well," said he shortly; "come in." CHAPTER V LUCK'S PLAY A young man who had just landed in New York from one of the big, adventurous transatlantic liners hailed a taxicab and was quickly drawn away into the glitter and gayety of a bright winter morning. He sat forward eagerly, looking at everything with the air of a lad on a holiday. He was a young man, but he was not in his first youth, and under a heavy sunburn he was pale and a trifle worn, but there was about him a look of being hard and very much alive. Under a broad brow there were hawk eyes of greenish gray, a delicate beak, a mouth and chin of cleverness. It was an interesting face and looked as though it had seen interesting things. In fact, Prosper Gael had just returned from his three months of ambulance service in France, and it was the extraordinary success of his play, "The Leopardess," that had chiefly brought him back. "Dear Luck," his manager had written, using the college title which Prosper's name and unvarying good fortune suggested, "you'd better come back and gather up some of these laurels that are smothering us all. The time is very favorable for the disappearance of your anonymity. I, for one, find it more and more difficult to keep the secret. So far, not even your star knows it. She calls you 'Mr. Luck' ... to that extent I have been indiscreet...."