i don't want to give you too much of the operatives' reports. i tell myself it is not to be expected anybody would have the same absorbing interest that i have in all the ramifications of the case. so i will go on with my story in the ordinary way.

after the catastrophe, it will be remembered, miss hamerton and sadie had gone into the country to a little retreat i chose for them. after a day or two sadie, seeing that miss hamerton could be left alone, would in fact be better alone, returned, and took up her work on the case as has been seen. later, that is about the first of june, miss hamerton was so far recovered as to be able to go to southampton, and open her cottage for the season. now, towards the end of the month, i learned that she had come to town for a few days to talk over next season's plans with her manager. all of which was encouraging as far as her health and spirits were concerned. but thinking of my friend roland, i was not anxious to see her recover too quickly. i had kept my promise to him, and miss hamerton was unaware that i was still busy on her case.

i was shy about going to see her. my feeling was, considering her position and mine, that if she wished to keep up the connection she ought to give me some sign. i confess i was a little hurt that i had not received any.

one day as i was returning to the office after lunch i met her strolling up the avenue with mount. when i caught sight of her the whole street brightened for me with her loveliness. i watched her coming for half a block before she saw me. she seemed well; she had a good colour, and her face was vivacious—more vivacious than it used to be, a little too vivacious. she seemed to have become aware of the necessity of vivacity. when she laughed her eyes were sombre.

she was dressed in a strange bright blue—few women could have carried off that dazzling colour so well, with coral red at her girdle and on her hat. she walked through the crowd with the beautiful unconsciousness that was part of her stage training. the staring, the whispering, the craning of necks neither troubled nor pleased her. alfred mount, who was no child in the world, could not quite hide his pride at being seen with her. he, too, was gorgeously arrayed, a little too well-dressed for a man of his age. but i had to grant his youthful air, and good looks.

i raised my hat, and was for keeping on, but she stopped short.

"are you going to pass me by?" she cried with charming reproachfulness.

i became as proud and conceited as mount, thus to be singled out by her. everybody stared at me. mount's greeting was affable and chilly—like winter sunshine. i fell into step beside them.

"why haven't you been to see me?" she demanded.

"why didn't you let me know you were in town?" i countered.

"i didn't like to bother one so busy," she said.

this to me from her! i walked on air.

"how is business, enderby?" mount asked in a faintly sneering tone.

"poor," i said calmly. "everybody appears to be behaving themselves."

"ah!" said he.

"what stories he could tell us if he would!" my dear lady said admiringly.

i smiled, as i suppose was expected of me. little did she suspect that the only case i had was hers.

we walked on chatting idly. what was said wouldn't be worth repeating, i expect, even if i could remember it. for me the mere sound of her voice was enough.

there was no mention of the unhappy things that were past. we were all engaged in a tacit conspiracy to look forward. she told me of the new play that was proposed for her. she insisted that i must read it before the matter was finally determined.

"you have such wonderful good sense!" she said. "and not at all affected by the actor's point of view."

mount's face looked a little pinched at this warm praise. i wondered, had he been consulted about the play. if he really honoured me with his jealousy he was foolish. i did not dream of aspiring to be anything more than her honest, faithful friend. sadie, i hoped, was my destined mate while irma hamerton was—why she was the sun over us all. sadie herself felt the same towards her as i did. on the other hand i was jealous of mount. i considered him presumptuous to aspire to our sun, as he plainly did. he wasn't half good enough—half?—he wasn't worthy to tie her shoe. besides, i was anxious about roland.

at forty-second street they were turning west to the theatre district, and i bade them good-bye. miss hamerton covered me with confusion by asking me to dine with her at her hotel the same night.

"is it to be a party?" i asked.

"no, indeed," she said. "nobody but alfred."

this "alfred" was new. it had always been "mr. mount." it set my teeth on edge.

i accepted and left them.

dinner was served in her exquisite little drawing-room now loaded with sweet peas. for some reason that i have forgotten, the tiresome old mrs. bleecker was not in evidence—still i did not have a good time. i believe none of us had. "alfred" still stuck in my crop. i reflected jealously, that if it had not been for the accidental meeting with me, mount would have been alone with her. no doubt he was thinking of that, too. everything from hors d'oeuvres to chartreuse was exquisite, but i had no zest in it.

it was "alfred" this and "alfred" that. really it seemed as if my dear lady was rubbing it in. i suppose that was her delicate way of letting me know of her intentions. i fancied i perceived a certain apprehensiveness in her as to how i was going to take it. perhaps i flattered myself. anyhow it was enough to make the angels weep. she was not in the least in love with him, she could not have been, but after the way of dear, ignorant women she was trying to persuade herself that she was. hence the "alfreds." i thought of my passionate young friend eating his heart out in a hall bedroom and my food choked me.

irma made some half laughing reference to the relief of being freed from mrs. bleecker's presence.

"if she bothers you why don't you let her go?" said mount.

"poor soul! what would she do?" said irma. "she'd never get another situation, she's so disagreeable. besides, i don't know that i could do any better."

"hardly worth while," said mount. "you won't need a chaperon much longer."

this was plain enough. it killed conversation for a moment or two. i was sure irma sent an imploring glance in my direction, but i kept my eyes on my plate. was it imploring me not to judge her, or imploring me to support her in what she meant to do, or imploring me to save her from it? how was a man to tell? i am sure she would have been glad if i had forced the question into the open, but i didn't know how to do it. true, i could have dropped a bomb in the middle of the table that would have shattered mount's hopes, merely by telling what i knew of roland. but my lips were sealed by my promise to him.

mount made some facetious remark at which we laughed and fled from the disconcerting subject. but it seemed as if we could not avoid it for long. the most innocent line of conversation had a way of landing us squarely in front of it. as when irma said:

"have you heard that beulah maddox has started again to get a divorce?"

miss maddox had been the heavy woman in our company.

"that is the eleventh time she has started proceedings, isn't it?" said i.

"constant in inconstancy!" murmured mount.

"miss maddox's emotions are like soap-bubbles," i said.

"do you think women are fickle?" irma asked with a direct look in which there was something very painful.

i, thinking of poor roland agonizing over his shorthand book until after midnight every night, could not help but shrug slightly.

"if they are it's the men's fault!" said irma bitterly. "the men i have known would make constancy in women an indication of imbecility!"

so there we were again!

"funny, isn't it," drawled mount, "how the sexes have no use for each other, yet love stones still sell."

we laughed again. you had to admit mount was a good man at a dinner table.

i excused myself early on the plea of business, and went direct to roland. here i find i am a little ahead of my story, for i have not told you of his present circumstances.

roland had forsworn the stage. in this, as in everything else, he was an extremist, and he had cut himself off absolutely from his former life. people were always deceived by roland's quietness. that composed face and indifferent manner concealed a capacity for white hot passion. as a matter of fact, i suppose, really passionate people are always like this, they couldn't live with themselves else, but we are blind to it. roland had the spirit of a fanatic. he was always torturing himself one way or another. you couldn't help being fond of him he was so noble—and so silly.

now, if you please, he had sold everything he possessed, and with the proceeds had pensioned off his old servant with an annuity. the mysterious legacy which had counted so against him, he had turned over to me with instructions to use it in bringing the thieves of irma's pearls to justice. i couldn't very well refuse the money without confessing that walter dunsany was backing me, and no one in the world, not even sadie, was to know of the relations between mr. dunsany and me. besides, if i hadn't taken it he would have done something more foolish with it. so i was holding it in trust.

having divested himself literally of every cent, roland set about finding a job. among his old acquaintances there were several prominent men who would have been glad to put him in the way of a good berth, but of course he would not apply to them. i could have done something for him myself, but he would not let me. he wanted to stand on his own bottom, he said. he set about answering advertisements, and visiting employment bureaus like any green lad from the country.

roland with his romantic good looks could not be insignificant in any sphere however humble. he had some quaint experiences. more than once he had to fall back on his good looks to save himself, as he thought, from starvation. he served as a demonstrator for a while, and another time as a model. roland used to say at this time that he hated his good looks, and i really think he meant it.

he finally landed a job as assistant bookkeeper and invoice clerk with a coffee importer on water street. how he hypnotised them into believing he could keep books i can't say. his salary was ten dollars a week, and he lived within it, which you will grant was something of a change for the late darling of the matinees. he had a hall bedroom on east seventeenth street, and ate outside. in the evenings he boned shorthand. his idea was to become first an expert law stenographer, and finally to study law.

i found him as usual in the wretched little room, bending over the shorthand manual with a green shade over his eyes. i was his only visitor in those days. he was thinner than of yore, not so harassed perhaps, but grimmer. there were deep hawklike lines from his proud nose to the corners of his bitter lips. it made me savage to see him wasting his splendid youth in this fashion.

"i've just had dinner with irma," i said.

"yes?" he said calmly.

you never could get any change out of roland. whatever he felt he never dropped that hawk mask.

"mount was there."

"charming fellow, mount."

"do you like him?" i asked amazed.

"i neither like him nor dislike him," he said evenly. "he's a charming fellow, isn't he?"

"oh, that's the tag they put on him," i said impatiently.

he returned his attention to the shorthand book. this unnatural pretence of indifference exasperated me beyond bearing.

"i believe they're preparing to get married," i said brutally.

"we expected that, didn't we?"

"don't you care?"

"not overmuch."

i knew he lied.

"what do you want to put on this pretence with me for?" i demanded. "if you were really as callous and unfeeling as you make out i wouldn't bother with you."

he merely smiled.

i was determined to rouse him. "she doesn't love him," i said.

"he's rich," he returned with a sneer.

all the time i was trying to goad him i was getting more worked up myself. "that's not it!" i answered angrily. "nobody knows it better than you. she's sound to the core. it's only your black temper that sees evil in her!"

"then how do you explain mount?" he asked.

"that's her instinct," i said. "it would be any good woman's instinct. she's trying to persuade herself that she loves him to fill the horrible emptiness of her heart since you failed her."

"i fail her?" he said with his eyebrows making two peaks.

"precisely. you have no right to allow her to go on thinking that you are guilty."

"i don't care to go into that again," he said with his immovable stubbornness.

"if there is a catastrophe it will be your fault," i cried.

"really, as i've told you often, you've missed your vocation, ben," he said with his bitter smile. "you're so romantic. let's change the subject."

"i won't," i cried. "i'm glad i'm romantic, if that's what it is. i love her a sight better than you ever did, because i have no hopes there myself. i am thinking of her. you think of nothing but yourself and your childish pride!"

"bravo, ben!" he said mockingly.

"i can't stand aside and see her marry mount. he's too old. there's an evil spot in him some place that i can't put my finger on."

"well, what are you going to do about it?"

"i came to you to get you to let me off my promise to say nothing."

that roused him as nothing else could. he sprang up, his face dark with passion. he actually threatened me with his fist.

"you swore to me!" he cried. "by god! if you break your oath——"

"keep your hair on," i said. "am i not here asking you to let me off?"

"i will not let you off," he said. "this is my affair, and mine only——"

"how about her?" i put in.

he did not hear me.

"you mean to be my friend, but friendship has no right to dictate another man's private affairs. i lead my life as i have to. you lead yours. no interference. that's the only way we can be friends. the only way you can help me in this is by bringing the thieves to book."

"but that's going to be a long chase," i groaned. "meanwhile mount is making hay. what's the use of publishing the truth if the mischief is already done?"

he shrugged. "if she can bring herself to marry mount——!"

the self-sufficiency of a passionate young man! i could almost have wept at my helplessness against his obstinacy. "be fair!" i cried. "it is our experience, our knowledge of men that warns us against mount. how can she tell?"

"this does no good," he muttered.

in his bitter wrongheadedness i believe that he almost wished that irma might find out her mistake too late.

but i would not give up, though i felt it was useless. "what happiness can there be for any of us if irma comes to grief?" i said.

"oh, for god's sake drop it!" he cried painfully. "what's the good of tearing open these old sores. you're off on the wrong tack. i've told you often enough. what if you did tell her i was innocent, and she turned back to me. that would be worse. i have nothing for her. i don't believe in her. she's dead to me. you can't revive that sort of thing."

"very well, then," i said. "it would be more merciful never to tell her that you are innocent."

that touched him. "oh——!" he said sharply taken aback. "a man doesn't like to dwell under that sort of accusation!" he quickly recovered himself. "just as you think best," he said hardily.

but let him make believe all he liked, the one little glimpse had convinced me that he was human after all.