have a whole system of philosophy in a mere handful of words,
haven't you?"

He smiled.

"It's all one needs, and perhaps as good as those more complicated and
more verbose."

More seriously and lowering her voice so Ray, who was still busy at the
other end of the room, might not overhear, she said:

"Mr. Steell--you are so clever--you know all about everything. Tell
me, do you know anything about Wall Street?"

The ingenuousness of the question amused him. With a laugh he answered:

"A little--to my sorrow."

"It's a dangerous place, isn't it?"

"Very; it has a graveyard at one end, the East River at the other, two
places highly convenient at times to those who play the game."

"If luck goes against him, a man could lose his all, then?"

"Not only his all but the all of others, too--if he's that kind of a
man."

She was silent for a moment. Then she continued:

"And sometimes even fine, honest men are tempted, are they not, to
gamble with money which is not theirs?"

"Many have done so. The prisons are full of them. There is nothing so
dangerous as the get-rich-quick fever. All the men who gamble in
stocks have it. It becomes a mania, an obsession. Their judgment
becomes warped; they lose all sense of right and wrong."

"There's something else I want to ask you. What do you think of Signor
Keralio?"

He hesitated a moment before he answered. Then, with some warmth, he
said:

"As I told you before, I think he's a crook, only we can't prove it.
I've been looking up his record. It's a bad one. The fellow has
behaved himself so far in New York, but out West he is known under
various names as one of the slickest rogues that ever escaped hanging.
At one time he was the chief of a band of international crooks and
blackmailers that operated in London, Paris, Buenos Ayres, and the City
of Mexico. The scheme they usually worked was to get some prominent
man so badly compromised that he would pay any amount to save himself
from exposure, and they played so successfully on the fears of their
victims that they were usually successful."

A worried look came into the young wife's face. Perhaps there was more
in Signor Keralio's relations with her husband than she had suspected.
Quickly she asked:

"Why do they permit a man of that character to be at large?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

"You can't proceed against a man unless there is some specific charge
made. The police have nothing