y, will consider
the matter. So will Mr. Stutz. It may be possible to arrange that your
brother's machine shall be put on the market."

"But your proposal," said Stutz obstinately. "It is not the kind of
business we undertake."

The interview was plainly at an end. We rose and left the room.

Tim Gorman did not understand, perhaps did not hear, a word of what was
said. He followed us out of the office nursing his machine and plainly
in high delight. Curiously enough, the elder Gorman seemed equally
pleased.

"We've got them," he said when we reached the street. "We've got Ascher,
Stutz & Co quite safe. I don't see what's to stop us now."

My own impression was that both Ascher & Stutz had definitely refused to
entertain our proposal or fall in with our plans. I said so to Gorman.

"Not at all," he said. "You don't understand business or business men.
Ascher and Stutz are very big bugs, very big indeed, and they have to
keep up appearances. It wouldn't do for them to admit to you and me, or
even to each other, that they were out for what they could get from the
old company. They have to keep up the pretence that they mean legitimate
business. That's the way these things are always worked. But you'll find
that they won't object to pocketing their cheques when the time comes
for smashing up Tim's machine and suppressing his patents."

I turned, when I reached the far side of the street, to take another
look at Ascher's office. I was struck again by the purity of line and
the severe simplicity of the building. Two thousand years ago men would
have had a statue of Pallas Athene in it.

CHAPTER VI.

I spent a very pleasant fortnight in New York among people entirely
unconnected with the Aschers or Gorman. I was kept busy dining,
lunching, going to the theatre, driving here and there in motor cars,
and enjoying the society of some of the least conventional and most
brilliant women in the world. I only found time to call on the Aschers
once and then did not see either of them. They were stopping in the
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the young man in the office told me that Mrs.
Ascher spent the whole of every day in her studio. Her devotion to art
was evidently very great. She could not manage to spend a holiday in
New York without hiring a studio. I inquired whether any members of the
Galleotti family were sitting for her, but the hotel clerk did not know
that. He told me, however, that Mr. Ascher was in Washington. G