have said the same thing if she had been a real detective, had walked
up behind him suddenly in the subway crush, had tapped his shoulder,
and whispered, "You're wanted."

"We are dealing with facts, not suppositions," she replied evasively.

Momentarily, a strange look passed over Macey's face. What was she
driving at--blackmail? He could not think so, even though he had only
just come to know Constance. He rejected the thought before it was half
formed.

"Put it as you please," he persisted. "I am, then, this Graeme
Mackenzie who has decamped from Omaha with half a million--it is half a
million in the article, is it not?--of cash and unregistered stocks and
bonds. Now what would you do?"

Constance felt unconsciously the shift which he had skilfully made in
their positions. Instead of being the pursuer, she was now the pursued,
at least in their conversation. He had admitted nothing of what her
quick intuition told her.

Yet she felt an admiration for the sang-froid of Macey. She felt a
spell thrown over her by the magnetic eyes that seemed to search her
own. They were large eyes, the eyes of a dreamer, rather than of a
practical man, eyes of a man who goes far and travels long with the
woman on whom he fixes them solely.

"You haven't answered my hypothetical question," he reminded her.

She brought herself back with a start. "I was only thinking," she
murmured.

"Then there is doubt in your mind what you would do?"

"N--no," she hesitated.

He bent over nearer across the table. "You would at least recall the
old adage, 'Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you'?"
he urged.

It was uncanny, the way this man read her thoughts.

"You know whom they say quotes scripture," she avoided.

"And am I a--a devil?"

"I did not say so."

"You hinted it."

She had. But she said, "No, nor hinted it."

"Then you did not MEAN to hint it?"

She looked away a moment at the gay throng. "Graeme Mackenzie," she
said, slowly, "what's the use of all this beating about? Why cannot we
be frank with one another?"

She paused, then resumed, meditatively, "A long time ago I became
involved with a man in a scheme to forge checks. I would have done
anything for him, anything."

A cloud passed over his face. She saw it, had been watching for it, but
appeared not to do so. His was a nature to brook no rivalry.

"My husband had become involved in extravagances for which I was to
blame," she went on.