"Armstrong, the financier?" "Yes. And Dupont Armstrong won’t stand for a man who isn’t on the level with his girl. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it." "I know a safer place," said Mr. Pryor, gently tapping his head. "Where it won’t go up in smoke." He rose and, after coming to a few necessary understandings with Burley, took his leave. As he walked rapidly along Broadway towards the subway, he felt that he had done a very good morning’s work. He was satisfied that Hutchins Burley knew more about the diamond smuggling than he cared to admit. The puzzle was that, although Burley obviously connected Claude Fontaine with the smuggling operations, he was unwilling to give the connection away. What was the motive that restrained him from exposing a man he bitterly hated? Clearly, either a lack of proof, or some consideration of a more personal kind. Reminding himself of his maxim that two and two never make four except in vulgar mathematics, Mark Pryor left the subway at Thirty-fourth Street, the Kips Bay station nearest the Lorillard tenements. Then he went directly to his flat. *II* Incoming or outgoing denizens made barely a ripple on the surface of Kips Bay. The district was used to a shifting population. Even the colonization of Sutton and Beekman Places by Pierian millionaires "cut no ice." Honest men and thieves, artists, criminals and Bohemians, idle paupers and rich idlers, all these floated in and floated out, but the net hodge podge was much the same. Bomb makers might come and gunmen might go, but Kips Bay went on forever. The Lorillard tenements, the hub of the district, had experienced their fair share of changes during the week of Mark Pryor’s advent. Robert and Janet were among the newcomers. Robert, thrown on his own scant resources, had secured a nook in Kelly’s flat, Number Thirteen, his berth there being the fruit of Cornelia’s good offices. And Janet had come to live with Cornelia in flat Number Fifteen. This last event was at once followed by a break in Cornelia’s partnership with Mazie Ross. The three small rooms and kitchenette were not large enough for more than two people. And pretty, slovenly Mazie, her early enthusiasm for Cornelia cooled, had lately spent more and more time on her own appearance and less and less on her companion’s wants. Cornelia always got rid of a companion the moment a better one turned up. A "better one" usually meant one who could do more of Cornelia’s housework, or could look after her creature comforts more diligently, or could give her more of that flattering attention of which she never had her fill. Whenever the time came to change partners, Cornelia would send the old one flying without the smallest compunction. Nor was she ever at a loss for a good excuse. Janet’s first day in Number Fifteen was Mazie’s last. When Mazie came home that night, "instead of poppies, willows waved o’er her couch."