s discouraging
investigation began. There was a heavy yellow moon in the sky, and a
warm, sweet summer wind was blowing. Stephanie had called on
Cowperwood at his office about four to say that instead of staying
down-town with him, as they had casually planned, she was going to her
home on the West Side to attend a garden-party of some kind at Georgia
Timberlake's. Cowperwood looked at her with--for him--a morbid eye.
He was all cheer, geniality, pleasant badinage; but he was thinking all
the while what a shameless enigma she was, how well she played her
part, what a fool she must take him to be. He gave her youth, her
passion, her attractiveness, her natural promiscuity of soul due
credit; but he could not forgive her for not loving him perfectly, as
had so many others. She had on a summery black-and-white frock and a
fetching brown Leghorn hat, which, with a rich-red poppy ornamenting a
flare over her left ear and a peculiar ruching of white-and-black silk
about the crown, made her seem strangely young, debonair, a study in
Hebraic and American origins.

"Going to have a nice time, are you?" he asked, genially, politically,
eying her in his enigmatic and inscrutable way. "Going to shine among
that charming company you keep! I suppose all the standbys will be
there--Bliss Bridge, Mr. Knowles, Mr. Cross--dancing attendance on you?"

He failed to mention Mr. Gurney.

Stephanie nodded cheerfully. She seemed in an innocent outing mood.

Cowperwood smiled, thinking how one of these days--very shortly,
perhaps--he was certain to take a signal revenge. He would catch her
in a lie, in a compromising position somewhere--in this studio,
perhaps--and dismiss her with contempt. In an elder day, if they had
lived in Turkey, he would have had her strangled, sewn in a sack, and
thrown into the Bosporus. As it was, he could only dismiss her. He
smiled and smiled, smoothing her hand. "Have a good time," he called,
as she left. Later, at his own home--it was nearly midnight--Mr.
Kennedy called him up.

"Mr. Cowperwood?"

"Yes."

"You know the studio in the New Arts Building?"

"Yes."

"It is occupied now."

Cowperwood called a servant to bring him his runabout. He had had a
down-town locksmith make a round keystem with a bored clutch at the end
of it--a hollow which would fit over the end of such a key as he had to
the studio and turn it easily from the outside. He felt in his pocket
for it, jumped in his ru