after-theater crowd was filling the place. The
orchestra was playing furiously, and the cabaret performance was
beginning. Sidney Prale leaned back in his chair and watched the show.
The waiter came to his side, and he ordered something to eat and drink.

Then he saw Kate Gilbert again, at a table not very far away from his.
She was dressed in an evening gown, as if she had just come from the
theater or opera. She was in the company of the elderly man who had met
her at the wharf, and a young man and an older woman were at the same
table.

Prale's eyes met hers for an instant, and he inclined his head a bit in
a respectful manner. But Kate Gilbert looked through him as if he had
not been present, and then turned her head and began talking to the
elderly man.

Prale's face flushed. He hadn't done anything wrong, he told himself. He
merely had bowed to her, as he would have bowed to any woman to whom he
had been properly introduced. She had seen fit to cut him. Well, he
could exist without Kate Gilbert, he told himself, but he wondered at
her peculiar manner.

He left the place within the hour and went back to the hotel and to bed.
In the morning he walked up the Avenue as far as the Circle, dropped
into a restaurant for a good breakfast, and then engaged a taxicab and
drove downtown to the financial district. He had remembered that he was
a man with a million, and that he had to pay some attention to business.

He went into the establishment of a famous trust company and sent his
card in to the president. An attendant ushered him into the president's
private office immediately.

"Sit down, Mr. Prale," said the financier. "I am glad that you came to
see me this morning. I was just about to have somebody look you up."

"Anything the matter?" Prale asked.

"Your funds were transferred to us by our Honduras correspondent," the
financier said. "Since you were leaving Honduras almost immediately, we
decided to care for the funds until you arrived and we could talk to
you."

"I shall want some good investments, of course," Prale said. "I have
disposed of all my holdings in Honduras, and I don't want the money to
be idle."

"Idleness is as bad for dollars as for men," said the financier,
clearing his throat.

"Can you suggest some investments? I have engaged no broker as yet, of
course."

"I--er--I am afraid that we have nothing at the present moment," the
financier said.

"The market must be good," Prale obser