laughing in apparent
enjoyment of the jest he had just heard. He saw McKeever's ferretlike
glance of interrogation and distrust--a thief's distrust of an honest
man--but Ronicky's good nature did not falter in outward seeming for an
instant. He swept up his hand, bet a hundred, with apparently foolish
recklessness, on three sevens, and then had to buy fresh chips from
McKeever.

The coming of the girl seemed to have completely upset his equilibrium
as a gambler--certainly it made him bet with the recklessness of a
madman. And Frederic Fernand, glancing in from time to time, watched the
demolition of Ronicky's pile of chips, with growing complacence.

Ronicky Doone had allowed himself to take heed of the room about him,
and Frederic Fernand liked him for it. His beautiful rooms were pearls
cast before swine, so far as most of his visitors were concerned. A
moment later Ronicky had risen, went toward the wall and drew a dagger
from its sheath.

It was a full twelve inches in length, that blade, and it came to a
point drawn out thinner than the eye could follow. The end was merely a
long glint of light. As for Ronicky Doone, he cried out in surprise and
then sat down, balancing the weapon in his hand and looking down at it,
with the silent happiness of a child with a satisfying toy.

Frederic Fernand was observing him. There was something remarkably
likable in young Doone, he decided. No matter what John Mark had
said--no matter if John Mark was a genius in reading the characters of
men--every genius could make mistakes. This, no doubt, was one of John
Mark's mistakes. There was the free and careless thoughtlessness of a
boy about this young fellow. And, though he glanced down the glimmering
blade of the weapon, with a sort of sinister joy, Frederic Fernand did
not greatly care. There was more to admire in the workmanship of the
hilt than in a thousand such blades, but a Westerner would have his eye
on the useful part of a thing.

"How much d'you think that's worth?" asked McKeever.

"Dunno," said Ronicky. "That's good steel."

He tried the point, then he snapped it under his thumb nail and a little
shiver of a ringing sound reached as far as Frederic Fernand.

Then he saw Ronicky Doone suddenly lean a little across the table,
pointing toward the hand in which McKeever held the pack, ready for the
deal.

McKeever shook his head and gripped the pack more closely.

"Do you suspect me of crooked work?" asked McKe