g could have persuaded Archie to dance, but now
that he was plunged into a life of adventure the fear of dropping dead
from excessive exercise no longer restrained him. Miss Seebrook
undoubtedly enjoyed dancing and after a one-step and a fox-trot she
declared that she would just love to dance all night. It had been a long
time since Archie had heard a girl make this highly unoriginal remark,
and in his own joy of the occasion he found it tinkling pleasantly in
remote recesses of his memory. As Miss Seebrook pouted when he suggested
that she might like him to introduce some of the other men and said that
she was perfectly satisfied, he hastened to assure her that the role of
monopolist was wholly agreeable to him. In this mad new life a
flirtation was only an incident of the day's work, and Miss Seebrook was
not at all averse to flirting with him.

She thought it would be fine to take a breath of air, and gathering up
her cloak they went into the garden for an ice. This refreshment ordered
he was conscious of new and pleasant thrills as he faced her across the
table. His youth stirred in him again. It was reassuring to have this
proof that one might be a lost sheep dyed to deepest black and yet
indulge in philandering under the June stars with a pretty girl--a
handsome stately girl she was!--unrestrained by the thought that she
would run away screaming for the police if she knew that he was a man
who shot people and consorted with thieves and very likely would die on
the gallows or be strapped in an electric chair before he got his
deserts. His mind had passed through innumerable phases since he left
his sister's house in Washington, and now as he shamelessly flirted with
Miss Seebrook he knew himself for an unmoral creature, a degenerate who
was all the more dangerous for being able to pass muster among decent
folk. He had always imagined that citizens of the underworld were
limited in their social indulgences to cautious meetings in the back
rooms of low saloons, but this he had found to be a serious mistake. It
was clear that the elite among the lawless might ride the high crest of
social success.

His only nervousness was due to the fear that he might betray himself.
It was wholly possible that Miss Seebrook knew some of his friends; in
fact she mentioned a family in Lenox that he knew very well. She was
expert in all the niceties of flirtation and he responded joyously, as
surprised and delighted as a child with a