"If you would please me," said the girl, "you won't insist...." "I don't," he returned ruefully. "But are you quite sure that you're all right now?" "Quite, thank you, dear Mr. Anisty!" With a pretty gesture of conquering impulse she swept her veil aside, and the warm rose-glow of the new-born day tinted her wan young cheeks with color. And her eyes were as stars, bright with a mist of emotion, brimming with gratitude--and something else. He could not say what; but one thing he knew, and that was that she was worn with excitement and fatigue, near to the point of breaking down. "You're tired," he insisted, solicitous. "Can't you let me----?" "I am tired," she admitted wistfully, voice subdued, yet rich and vibrant. "No, please. Please let me go. Don't ask me any questions--now." "Only one," he made supplication. "I've done nothing----" "Nothing but be more kind than I can say!" "And you're not going to back out of our partnership?" "Oh!" And now the color in her cheeks was warmer than that which the dawn had lent them. "No ... I shan't back out." And she smiled. "And if I call a meeting of the board of management of Anisty and Wentworth, Limited, you will promise to attend?" "Ye-es...." "Will it be too early if I call one for to-day?" "Why...." "Say at two o'clock this afternoon, at Eugene's. You know the place?" "I have lunched there----" "Then you shall again to-day. You won't disappoint me?" "I will be there. I ... I shall be glad to come. Now--_please_!" "You've promised. Don't forget." He stepped back and stood in a sort of dreamy daze, while, with one final wonderful smile at parting, the girl assumed control of the machine and swung it out from the curb. Maitland watched it forge slowly up the Avenue and vanish round the Thirty-sixth Street corner; then turned his face southward, sighing with weariness and discontent. At Thirty-fourth Street a policeman, lounging beneath the corrugated iron awning of a corner saloon, faced about with a low whistle, to stare after him. Maitland experienced a chill sense of criminal guilt; he was painfully conscious of those two shrewd eyes, boring gimlet-like into his back, overlooking no detail of the wreck of his evening clothes. Involuntarily he glanced down at his legs, and they moved mechanically beneath the edge of his overcoat, like twin animated columns of mud and dust, openly advertising his misadventures. He felt in his soul that they shrieked aloud, that they would presently succeed in dinning all the town awake, so that the startled populace would come to the windows to stare in wonder as he passed by. And inwardly he groaned and quaked. As for the policeman, after some reluctant hesitation, he overcame the inherent indisposition to exertion that affects his kind, and, swinging his stick, stalked after Maitland.