She nodded with a curious dignity and I found myself parading, dipping and swaying around a tiny dancefloor, while the black girl pressed her body against me despairingly. I pulled off to the side and led her back to my table. "Why do you do this?" I asked. She said nothing. "You need money?" I asked. She still said nothing. "Here!" I said. I pulled out my check-book and wrote out a check for a thousand dollars payable to cash. "This is for you," I told her. "Take it and do whatever you want to do. The check's good." The girl looked at me, took the check, studied it. Then she rose, in complete silence, looked at me again and left me. She shrugged her way through the dancers and the waiters to the rear of the room and disappeared. I did not know her name and I never saw her again. A high-ochre girl came over. "Change yo' luck?" she asked, bending over so that I could see down the front of her scant-cut dress. "My luck's done changed," I told her. "Give me a drink and here's a ten-spot for yourself. And I'll be on my way." She tucked the bill down the front of her dress. "May you have good luck, man," she said gravely. As she said it, her eyes widened and her mouth hung open. "Gawd!" she muttered. "The black dog's follering you!" and fled. "I know," I said to the room at large, and left without waiting for my drink. CHAPTER 32 I walked down Lenox Avenue to the first cigar-store and telephoned the office. As soon as I was connected with Arthurjean I asked her to meet me at her apartment as soon as she could make it. Then I hailed a cab and was driven south through Central Park to the upper east Fifties' and my secretary's apartment. She was waiting. "Gee, honey," she exclaimed. "I just got here. What's cooking?" I followed her in and went straight to the kitchenette. I poured myself a stiff drink and downed it rapidly. I poured myself another and turned to see her staring at me. "You look terrible," she told me. "What's happened to you?" "I can't tell you," I replied. "You'd think I'm crazy and you'd turn me in." "I will not!" She came up close to me and looked me square in the eye. "I don't care if you're crazy as a bed-bug," she announced. "Go on and 'pit it out in momma's hand. I won't squeal." "Sit down!" I ordered, "and get yourself a drink first. This is tough." She sat and listened quietly as I outlined the latest developments. "So you see," I concluded, "I _can't_ tell anyone. They'd have me locked up for keeps." She nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "I can see that.... Maybe your wife--" "I couldn't tell _her_," I contradicted. "It would be too damn cruel just now when she's really happy." Arthurjean sat and thought for a while. "Yep," she remarked, as though she had just concluded a long argument. "You're right. You can't tell nobody _that_. How about this nosey A. J. Harcourt? Won't he find out? He's still having you tailed."