ve him to the station. There was a private
car, the "Cyane," attached to the long train. Wilton met them, spoke
pleasantly to Duane; but Colonel Mallett did not invite his son to enter
the car, and adieux were said where they stood.

As the young fellow turned and passed beneath the car-windows, he caught
a glimpse above him of a heavy-jowled, red face into which a cigar was
stuck--a perfectly enormous expanse of face with two little piglike eyes
almost buried in the mottled fat.

"That's Max Moebus," observed a train hand respectfully, as Duane
passed close to him; "I guess there's more billions into that there
private car than old Pip's crowd can dig out of their pants pockets on
pay day."

A little, dry-faced, chin-whiskered man with a loose pot-belly and thin
legs came waddling along, followed by two red-capped negroes with his
luggage. He climbed up the steps of the "Cyane"; the train man winked at
Duane, who had turned to watch him.

"Amos Flack," he said. "He's their 'lobbygow.'" With which contemptuous
information he spat upon the air-brakes and, shoving both hands into his
pockets, meditatively jingled a bunch of keys.

* * * * *

The club was absolutely deserted that night; Duane dined there alone,
then wandered into the great empty room facing Fifth Avenue, his steps
echoing sharply across the carpetless floor. The big windows were open;
there was thunder in the air--the sonorous stillness in which voices and
footsteps in the street ring out ominously.

He smoked and watched the dim forms of those whom the heat drove forth
into the night, men with coats over their arms and straw hats in their
hands, young girls thinly clad in white, bare-headed, moving two and two
with dragging steps and scarcely spirit left even for common coquetry or
any response to the jesting oafs who passed.

Here and there a cruising street-dryad threaded the by-paths of the
metropolitan jungle; here and there a policeman, gray helmet in hand,
stood mopping his face, night-club tucked up snugly under one arm. Few
cabs were moving; at intervals a creaking, groaning omnibus rolled
past, its hurricane deck white with the fluttering gowns of women and
young girls.

Somebody came into the room behind him; Duane turned, but could not
distinguish who it was in the dusk. A little while later the man came
over to where he sat, and he looked up; and it was Dysart.

There was silence for a full minute; Dy