ir to face the couch. Jimmie
Dale stood up a little shakily.

"Look here!" he said awkwardly. "I--I don't quite understand. I remember
that my taxi got into a smash-up, and I suppose I have to thank you for
the assistance you must have rendered me; only, as I say"--he looked in
a puzzled way around the room, and in an even more perplexed way at the
mask on the other's face--"I must confess I am at a loss to understand
quite the meaning of this."

"Suppose that instead of trying to understand you simply accept things
as you find them." The voice was soft, but there was a finality in it
that its blandness only served to make the more suggestive.

Jimmie Dale drew himself up, and bowed coldly.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to intrude. I have only to
thank you again, then, and bid you good-night."

The lips beneath the mask parted slightly in a politely deprecating
smile.

"There is no hurry," said the man, a sudden sharpness creeping into his
tones. "I am sorry that the rule I apply to you does not work both ways.
For instance, I might be quite at a loss to account for your presence in
that taxicab."

Jimmie Dale's smile was equally polite, equally deprecating.

"I fail to see how it could be of the slightest possible interest to
you," he replied. "However, I have no objection to telling you. I hailed
the taxi at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place, told the
chauffeur to drive me to the St. James Club, and--"

"The St. James Club," broke in the other coldly, "is, I believe, north,
not SOUTH of Waverly Place--and on Broadway not at all."

Jimmie Dale stared at the other for an instant in patient annoyance.

"I am quite well aware of that," he said stiffly. "Nevertheless I told
the man to drive me to the St. James Club. We came across Waverly Place,
but on reaching Broadway, instead of turning uptown, he suddenly whirled
in the other direction and sent the car flying at full speed down Lower
Broadway. I shouted at the man. I don't know yet whether he was drunk
or crazy or"--Jimmie Dale's eyes fixed disdainfully on the other's
mask--"whether there might not, after all, have been method in his
madness. I can only say that before we had gone more than two or three
blocks, a wild effort on his part to avoid a collision with an auto
swinging out from a side street resulted in an even more disastrous
smash with another on the other side, and I was knocked senseless."

"'Victim,' I presume, i