all the good hard dollars just waiting for someone to
spraddle them around!" said Mr. Bunner with a note of pathos in his
voice. "Why, she has money to burn--money to feed to the birds--and
nothing doing! The old man left her more than half his wad. And think of
the figure she might make in the world! She is beautiful, and she is the
best woman I ever met, too. But she couldn't ever seem to get the habit
of spending money the way it ought to be spent."

His words now became a soliloquy: Trent's thoughts were occupying all
his attention. He pleaded business soon, and the two men parted with
cordiality.

Half an hour later Trent was in his studio, swiftly and mechanically
"cleaning up." He wanted to know what had happened; somehow he must find
out. He could never approach herself, he knew; he would never bring back
to her the shame of that last encounter with him; it was scarcely likely
that he would even set eyes on her. But he must know!... Cupples was in
London, Marlowe was there.... And anyhow he was sick of Paris.

Such thoughts came, and went; and below them all strained the fibers of
an unseen cord that dragged mercilessly at his heart, and that he cursed
bitterly in the moments when he could not deny to himself that it was
there.... The folly, the useless, pitiable folly of it!

In twenty-four hours his feeble roots in Paris had been torn out. He was
looking over a leaden sea at the shining fortress-wall of the Dover
cliffs.

* * * * *

But though he had instinctively picked out the lines of a set purpose
from among the welter of promptings in his mind, he found it delayed at
the very outset.

He had decided that he must first see Mr. Cupples, who would be in a
position to tell him much more than the American knew. But Mr. Cupples
was away on his travels, not expected to come back for a month; and
Trent had no reasonable excuse for hastening his return. Marlowe he
would not confront until he had tried at least to reconnoiter the
position. He constrained himself not to commit the crowning folly of
seeking out Mrs. Manderson's house in Hampstead; he could not enter it,
and the thought of the possibility of being seen by her lurking in its
neighborhood brought the blood to his face.

He stayed at a hotel, took a studio, and while he awaited Mr. Cupples'
return attempted vainly to lose himself in work.

At the end of a week he had an idea that he acted upon with eager
precipi