"He is an up-to-date Claude Duval," he said harshly. "It hurts me, rather, Mary, to hear you approve of him. Why do you do so? I have noticed something of this before. Do you forget that this man, for all the romance and mystery that surround him, still is no more than a common thief--a criminal?" Mary's lips tightened. "He is not," she said, meeting his eyes bravely. "That is a very narrow view, Dick-" Then, seeing the pain in the grey eyes, and remembering that this man with whom she disputed had just lost his hopes in life--his hopes of _her_--she reached out impulsively and grasped his arm. "Oh, Dick!" she said; "forgive me! But I am so utterly miserable, dear, that any poor little straw seems worth grasping at." So we must leave them; it was a situation full of poor human pathos. The emotions surging within these two hearts would have afforded an interesting study for the magical pen of Charles Dickens. But we cannot pause to essay it; the tide of our narrative bears us elsewhere. Mr. J. J. Oppner, the pride of Wall Street, when, his fascinating daughter, Zoe, beside him, he rose to address his guests at the Hotel Astoria that evening, would have provided a study equally interesting to Charles Dickens or to the late Professor Darwin. It would have puzzled even the distinguished biologist to reconcile the two species, represented by Mr. Oppner and Zoe, with any common origin. The millionaire's seamed and yellow face looked like nothing so much as a magnified section of a walnut. Whilst the girl, with her cloud of copper-dusted brown hair trapped within an Oriental head-dress, her piquant beauty enhanced, if that were possible, by the softly shaded lights, and the bewitching curves revealed by her evening gown borrowing a more subtle witchery from their sombre environment of black-coated plutocrats, justified the most inspired panegyric that ever had poured from the fountain-pen of a New York reporter. Mr. Oppner said: "Gentlemen,--We have met this evening for _a_ special purpose. With everyone's _per_mission, we will _ad_journ to another room and see how we can fix things up for Mr. Severac Bablon." He led the way without loss of time, his small, dried figure lost between that of John Macready ("the King of Coolgardie"), a stalwart, iron-grey Irishman, and the unshapely bulk of Baron Hague, once more perilously adventured upon English soil. Sir Leopold Jesson, trim, perfectly groomed, his high, bald cranium gleaming like the dome of Solomon's temple, followed, deep in conversation with a red, raw-boned Scotsman, whose features seemed badly out of drawing, and whose eyebrows suggested shrimps. This was Hector Murray, the millionaire who had built and endowed more public baths and institutions than any man since the Emperor Vespasian. Last of all, went Julius Rohscheimer, that gross figurehead of British finance, saying, with a satirish smile, to Haredale, who had made an eighth at dinner: