there was nothing in the way she
said it that gave the slightest hope that it would be any less. It was
a hold-up.

Mary Louise met Claybrook; she was passing through the lobby of the
Patterson where she still had her expensive room. He saw the trouble
in her face and drew her to the lounge in the ladies' entrance.

"What's wrong?" he said shortly. "You've been hard to catch
lately--something's on your mind."

"No, there isn't. Honestly," she protested. She saw that he was not to
be put off. Moreover, she was feeling entirely weak and helpless, no
longer the masterful and self-reliant female. And she told him the
story--most of it.

When she finished he smiled at her. He seemed genuinely amused. "It's
quite a tragedy," he admitted.

"And what am I going to do?"

"That's just the point," he agreed. "Has the tea room been making you
money? Does it look good to you?"

"Yes," she said. "Too good to let go of." And then she launched into a
digressive and rather vague prospectus of its activities and profits.

"How much money would it take?" he asked at length.

She told him.

"Well, then, forget it," he concluded. "I told you that if you got in
a jam, to call on me. Well, I was not talking just to hear myself
talk. I meant it." He paused and stared away at the opposite wall.
"Meet me here this afternoon at three and I'll have a check for you."

Mary Louise was for the moment incredulous. Then a great sense of
relief flooded over her, and then a feeling of regret.

"But I couldn't," she faltered.

"Why couldn't you?" He rose to his feet and looked down at her.

"I couldn't take money from you. You don't know what I'd do with it,
don't know what sort of business woman I am, or anything."

"I know enough to satisfy myself," Claybrook assured her soothingly.
"And I'm not giving you the money. You can write me out a note for
it. Six per cent. is better than four," he added. And then he smiled.

Two days later Maida Jones moved out and Mary Louise saw her no more.

CHAPTER XII

Loneliness wages a Fabian warfare. It is likewise a craven. At the
slightest opposition it turns tail and flees, frequently to steal back
furtively and lurk slinking in the vicinity, clouding it. Only on rare
occasions does it boldly come out and proclaim itself.

Another week had passed. Joe was finding leisure. And in leisure there
are echoes, as in all vast vaulted spaces, where slight sounds linger
reverberating and fain