no doubt you'll find the place carpeted with zeros and hung with
noughts and ciphers." I couldn't refrain from joshing her a little. She
took it with a smile glanced across the room, looked a little surprised,
and half rose with,

"Why, there they are for me now."

I couldn't see anybody that she might mean, except a man who had walked
the length of the place talking to the head waiter, and now stood
arguing at the corner of what had been Bronson Vandeman's supper table.
This man evidently had his attention directed to us, turned, looked, and
in the moment of his crossing I saw that it was Cummings. There was not
even the usual tight-lipped half smile under that cropped mustache of
his.

"Good evening." He looked at our faces, uttering none of the surprise he
plainly felt, letting the two words do for greeting to us all, and, as
it seemed, to me, an expression of disapproval as well. The young lady
replied first.

"Oh, Mr. Cummings, did they send you for me? Where are the others?"

She had come to her feet, and reached for the coat which Worth was
holding more as if he meant to keep it than put it on her.

"I left your chaperone waiting in the machine," Cumming's tone and look
carried a plain hurry-up. Worth took his time about the coat, and spoke
low to the girl while he helped her into it.

"You'll go with us to-morrow morning?"

She gave me one of those adorable smiles that brought the dimples
momentarily in her cheeks.

"If Mr. Boyne wants me. He hasn't said yet."

"Do I need to?" I asked. The question seemed reasonable. There she
stood, such a very pretty girl, between her two cavaliers who looked at
each other with all the traditional hostility that belonged to the
situation. She smiled on both, and didn't neglect me. I settled the
matter with,

"Worth has your address; we'll call for you in my machine." And I got
the idea that Cummings was asking questions about it as he went away
holding her arm.

"Do you think the little girl will really be of any use?" I spoke to the
back of Worth's head as he continued to stare after them.

"Sure. I know she will." He shoved his crumpled napkin in among the
coffee service, and we moved toward the desk. "Sure she will," he
repeated. "Wonder where she met Cummings."

CHAPTER V

AT THE ST. DUNSTAN

At the Palace Hotel Sunday morning where I went to pick up Worth before
we should call for little Miss Wallace, he met me in high spirits and
with an ent