"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a crook--like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed--kindness of you and your Maitland. Now--I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?" "What--?" she asked breathlessly. "I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat--something a copper would never think of--and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tête-à-tête Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks. Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion. "I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore. The girl tried to nerve herself. "It--it doesn't seem to strike you," she argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue." For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to repeat it, with added emphasis. "You try it on, my lady, and see what happens." She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to know me well enough to know...." "What?" she breathed, in spite of herself. Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat. "Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my hands. Now I guess you understand,"--and turning his head he fixed her with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,--"that one squeal out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and--I'll take you with me for company." "You--you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous. "Like a dog," he returned with unction. "You, a man, would--would shoot a woman?" "You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man: _I'm_ a crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have overlooked that. Amateurs often do.... To-night I made you a fair proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty. Now you see the other side of the picture."