of late.

But that the shattering of such a moderate financier as Len Haswell
should foreshadow the total ruin of a money czar like Hamilton Burton
and impoverish his parasite brother, was an idea too colossal to grasp
in its entirety. Yet in the news from America it slowly dawned. In the
Paris edition of the _Herald_ it was convincingly chronicled, and the
beautiful dark-haired woman who had thrown away her husband began to see
that she had no reserve upon which to fall back. Had Len's modest
fortune survived that tempest, it would have been easy to put back into
port. A little contrition, a confession that she had tried living
without him and found it impossible, would have won his forgiveness,
because his heart had been too sore to calculate. But now Len was
bankrupt and Paul would be likewise.

In these days Carlos de Metuan was no longer a speaker of veiled
phrases. He was playing the role of the generous Platonic friend,
watching her moods and seeking to comfort her.

There was no strain of iron in this woman's soul, and that suited his
purpose. Just now he would gain more by merely standing by. Her
increasing alarm would one day turn to panic and she would lose her
head. For that day he could afford to wait.

Loraine was undergoing an agony, and when the time came which the duke
regarded as the psychological moment, and he baldly offered her his
proposition, she made a lovely picture of a woman in distress converted
into a righteous fury.

She sent him away with blazing eyes and words that should have scorched,
and he went with a shrug of the shoulders and smiled when he was out of
sight. "It is not for long," he told himself.

In that cynical conviction Carlos de Metuan was correct. Loraine tried
poverty and loneliness for a while in Paris, and because she was still a
creature of rare beauty, several other men with greater or less degree
of skilled language suggested similar solutions.

At last she met the duke again. He had been in Andalusia and had
returned once more to Paris--alone. He was driving in a motor car and
came upon her walking near the Arc de Triomphe. He halted the car and
asked her to let him drive her home. At first she demurred, but in the
end consented to let him drop her at her _pension_, provided he would
promise to leave her immediately at her door.

"Assuredly," agreed the man gravely. "But in return, you will do me a
favor also? You will let me call for you tonight and will dine