"Are we alone here?" said Power, speaking only when an uneasy movement on Dacre's part bestirred him. "Yes. I saw to that when I heard your cab. I timed you to a nicety." "You must be experienced in these matters." "I have been most sorts of an idiot in my time." "You are quite sure we are not overheard?" "As sure as a man can be of anything." "Then I recognize your right to question me. Tonight you, tomorrow all Newport, will know what has happened----" "Pardon an interruption. Women are invariably careful of the hour, howsoever heedless they may be of next week. Newport knows nothing, will know nothing, except that a popular lady is meeting her father in New York, the said father having written to say he is coming East. His letter is Exhibit A, yours to me Exhibit B, or it would be if it weren't burnt." "A legal jargon is not out of place. When the lady in question has secured a divorce she will become my wife. Now you have the true explanation of my seeming discourtesy. When I am married, I shall entertain you at Bison if I have to escort you from Tokio, or even from Sing Sing." "But----" "There are no 'buts.' She was stolen from me, decoyed away by the tricks of the pickpocket and the forger. I am merely regaining possession of my own. It was not I who cleared up the theft. That was her doing. There can be no shirking the consequences. If my mother, whom I love and venerate, implored me on her bended knees to draw back now from the course I have mapped out, I would stop my ears to her pleading, because I could not yield to it." "Oh, it's like that, is it?" "Just like that." Dacre struck another match, and relighted the cigar which he had allowed to go out after the first whiff or two. Power noticed that the flare of the match was not used as an excuse for scrutinizing him, because his friend's eyes were studiously averted. Then came the quiet, cultured voice from the darkness: "If that's the position, old man, I wish you every sort of good luck, and a speedy end to your worries, and I'll come at your call to that ranch of yours, from the other end of the earth, if need be." Again a little pause. Then Power spoke: "You ring like true metal all the time, Dacre. May I ask you one thing--are you married?" "No, nor ever likely to be. I--I lost her, not by fraud, but by my own folly. But she understood--before she died. That is my only consolation. It must suffice. It has sufficed." "I'm sorry. I touched that chord unthinkingly. I merely wanted to have your full comprehension--and sympathy." "You had both already. I would not have dared to intrude if I did not realize that a man talking to another man can raise points which are lost sight of when a woman--_the_ woman--is the other party to the debate." "Would you care to hear a brief record of my life during the last few years?"