"All right," said Corliss quietly. "Come in." He turned carelessly, and walked away from the door keeping between his guest and the desk. When he reached the desk, he turned again and leaned against it, his back to it, but in the action of turning his hand had swept a sheet of note-paper over Ray Vilas's cheque--a too conspicuous oblong of pale blue. Pryor had come in and closed the door. "I don't know," he began, regarding the other through his glasses, with steady eyes, "that I'm going to interfere with you at all, Corliss. I just happened to strike you--I wasn't looking for you. I'm on vacation, visiting my married daughter that lives here, and I don't want to mix in if I can help it." Corliss laughed, easily. "There's nothing for you to mix in. You couldn't if you wanted to." "Well, I hope that's true," said Pryor, with an air of indulgence, curiously like that of a teacher for a pupil who promises improvement. "I do indeed. There isn't anybody I'd like to see turn straight more than you. You're educated and cultured, and refined, and smarter than all hell. It would be a big thing. That's one reason I'm taking the trouble to talk to you." "I told you I wasn't doing anything," said Corliss with a petulance as oddly like that of a pupil as the other's indulgence was like that of a tutor. "This is my own town; I own property here, and I came here to sell it. I can prove it in half-a-minute's telephoning. Where do you come in?" "Easy, easy," said Pryor, soothingly. "I've just told you I don't want to come in at all." "Then what do you want?" "I came to tell you just one thing: to go easy up there at Mr. Madison's house." Corliss laughed contemptuously. "It's _my_ house. I own it. That's the property I came here to sell." "Oh, I know," responded Pryor. "That part of it's all right. But I've seen you several times with that young lady, and you looked pretty thick, to me. You know you haven't got any business doing such things, Corliss. I know your record from Buda Pesth to Copenhagen and----" "See here, my friend," said the younger man, angrily, "you may be a tiptop spotter for the government when it comes to running down some poor old lady that's bought a string of pearls in the Rue de la Paix----" "I've been in the service twenty-eight years," remarked Pryor, mildly. "All right," said the other with a gesture of impatience; "and you got me once, all right. Well, that's over, isn't it? Have I tried anything since?" "Not in that line," said Pryor. "Well, what business have you with any other line?" demanded Corliss angrily. "Who made you general supervisor of public morals? I want to know----"