for your task."

"And my father?"

"Would approve if he could be got to approve the business at all. You do
not even need to take your brother with you."

"Oh, then, it's with women only I have to deal?"

"Read the address after you are headed up Fifth Avenue."

But when, with her doubts not yet entirely removed, she opened the small
slip he had given her, the number inside suggested nothing but the
fact that her destination lay somewhere near Eightieth Street. It was
therefore with the keenest surprise she beheld her motor stop before
the conspicuous house of the great financier whose late death had so
affected the money-market. She had not had any acquaintance with this
man herself, but she knew his house. Everyone knew that. It was one of
the most princely in the whole city. C. Dudley Brooks had known how to
spend his millions. Indeed, he had known how to do this so well that it
was of him her father, also a financier of some note, had once said he
was the only successful American he envied.

She was expected; that she saw the instant the door was opened. This
made her entrance easy--an entrance further brightened by the delightful
glimpse of a child's cherubic face looking at her from a distant
doorway. It was an instantaneous vision, gone as soon as seen; but its
effect was to rob the pillared spaces of the wonderful hallway of some
of their chill, and to modify in some slight degree the formality of
a service which demanded three men to usher her into a small
reception-room not twenty feet from the door of entrance.

Left in this secluded spot, she had time to ask herself what member of
the household she would be called upon to meet, and was surprised to
find that she did not even know of whom the household consisted. She
was sure of the fact that Mr. Brooks had been a widower for many years
before his death, but beyond that she knew nothing of his domestic life.
His son--but was there a son? She had never heard any mention made of a
younger Mr. Brooks, yet there was certainly some one of his connection
who enjoyed the rights of an heir. Him she must be prepared to meet with
a due composure, whatever astonishment he might show at the sight of a
slip of a girl instead of the experienced detective he had every right
to expect.

But when the door opened to admit the person she was awaiting, the
surprise was hers. It was a woman who stood before her, a woman and an
oddity. Yet, in just what her oddity lay, V