el, in a heavy silver frame. It was a large print and a
good one. The girl's eyes looked straight into his. Her wonderful upper
lip was curved in the half-smile that was so familiar and so baffling.

"Well," the smile asked, "what do you think of it all, now that you are
here? Still a bit confusing, isn't it? For you didn't expect to find
_me_ here, seemingly so much at home; did you?"

In the instant when his eyes had found the photograph, Laurie had been
about to light the inevitable cigarette. The discovery arrested his hand
and held him for an instant, motionless. Then, with fingers that
trembled, he completed the interrupted action, threw the match into the
fire, and with blind eyes stared down into the flames.

In that instant he dared not look at Shaw. He was shaken by an emotion
that left him breathless and almost trembling. What was Doris's
photograph doing in this man's room? In the momentary amazement and fury
that overwhelmed him at the discovery, he told himself that it would not
have been much worse to find her actual presence here.

All this had taken but a moment. Shaw, hospitably busy with his decanter
and siphon, had used the interval to fill two glasses, and was now
offering one to his guest.

"No, thanks." Laurie spoke with abrupt decision.

"No?" Shaw looked pained. Then he smiled a wide smile, and Laurie,
seeing it and the man's pointed teeth, mentally changed him again from
the worm to the serpent. He understood Shaw's mental process. The fellow
thought he was afraid to drink the mixture. But what did it matter what
the fellow thought?

"Perhaps, then, you will have a cigar, and sit down comfortably for our
chat?"

Shaw himself set the example by dropping into one of the easy-chairs and
lighting a fat Perfecto. His smooth brown head rested in what seemed an
accustomed hollow of the chair back. His wide, thin lips were pursed in
sybaritic enjoyment of his cigar. He stretched himself in the warmth of
the fire, sleek, torpid, and loathsome.

"Mr. Shaw."

"Y-e-s."

Still standing, with his elbow braced against the mantel, the visitor
tossed his cigarette into the fire and looked down into his host's
projecting eyes. It appeared that Shaw roused himself with difficulty
from the gorged comfort of the moment. There was a perceptible interval
before he gave his guest his whole attention. Then he straightened in
his chair, and the projecting eyes took on their veiled but watchful
look.

"Ye