He rose from the table, irritated, his nerves still a-jangle; but a sort of compunction came to him, or perhaps the feeling that he was making a business mistake in crowding this man. A sudden half-smile came to his face as he turned when the house man brought his hat and stick for him. “It’s a stiff gait we travel here,” said he. “Now I’m going to my shop to see if I can earn a dollar or two to pay the rent. I believe I’ll turn you over to my chauffeur and let him drive you ‘bout town for a day or so. You remember that kid that was there last night—one that sang and played to us—Polly Pendleton, her name was. I saw you having a good look at that young dame. Some calico, what? Yeh, some girl. Now, listen here—how’d you like to go up and have a little visit with Polly around eleven-thirty or so? I could fix it up. Touch of life, eh? Gad, she seemed to be interested in you somehow—scared or something. Now——” David Joslin went suddenly white. “Ye fergit, I reckon—I told ye I was a married man. I’ve got a wife—we had two children, down thar in Kentucky.” “Well, I’ve got a wife too,” rejoined Haddon contemplatively. “If I had any children I’d need that much more of something to make me forget my condition of servitude. I don’t know where the Missus has gone to, but she’s shook us this morning, that’s plain! You go up and talk religion to Polly, while I go down to the office and try to make a dollar and a quarter. Maybe you can save a human soul—eh? That’s up to you. “Life is so short,” he went on presently, finding a cigarette in his pocket. “Why hang crêpe when life is so darned short? I don’t blame you for wanting to learn the alphabet and the multiplication table, but if a man came to me and gave me a chance like this, I’d postpone those things.” Jimmy Haddon went grimly chuckling to his own desk, and left the question of the gentleman from Kentucky and the lady of Harlem strictly upon the knees of the gods. CHAPTER XI POLLY PENDLETON’S VISITOR THE cynically smiling driver of Haddon’s car at a late hour that morning deposited a solitary passenger at the door of a certain apartment building high up on Manhattan Island. Seeing the bewilderment of his charge, the chauffeur himself entered the elevator with him and touched as with no unaccustomed hand a certain button near a door. He then discreetly departed. The door opened. There appeared almost in the face of the waiting visitor the figure of a young woman—exceedingly comely even at that hour of the day—a young woman of oval face, of dark, long-lashed eyes, of dark curling hair, of shapeliness of figure scantly veiled by the pink kimono which she wore in morning negligée. It was Polly Pendleton. She was alone. Her praiseworthy partner had before this arisen for her morning cocktail, her morning coffee, her morning cigarette, and her morning stroll downtown. Joslin stood motionless, silent. In a flash she recognized him. Then he stalked in.