ately. "You--er--you
don't understand this hotel, young woman. A woman seen leaving one of
these apartments and going out of the house, more especially at this
time of the day--er----"

He flushed angrily.

"Yes, I know," Mary said helpfully. "But I'm not going out in those
clothes if I stay here and die of old age."

And here, from the end of the corridor, Johnson Boller's deep, carrying
voice came:

"Has he kicked the kid out yet, Wilkins?"

"Not yet, sir," said Wilkins's grave tone.

"What? Is he going to keep him here after all?"

"I should judge so, sir. There's been no disturbance down that way."

"Well, what," Johnson Boller muttered audibly, "do you know about that?"

"It's most distressing, sir!" Wilkins replied.

Anthony Fry's pupils dilated.

"He's coming down here, I think!" he said. "Get on that wig again!"

"Why?" Mary inquired, pausing in the process of knotting up her
wonderful hair.

"Because Boller--Boller----" Anthony stammered wildly. "There is no need
of his knowing that you're a--a young woman, now or in future. I am
speaking for your own sake, you know. You may meet him a thousand times
elsewhere in years to come, and there's a mean streak in Boller
which----"

"Is there?" Mary asked, with what was really her very first touch of
concern since resuming her proper sex. "Give me the wig, then."

Fortunately, at the living-room end of the corridor, Johnson Boller
devoted a good five minutes to meditation. He had finished his usual
lightning morning tub and resumed his bathrobe in a more cheerful frame
of mind, quite confident that David Prentiss was no longer in their
midst. He had even prepared a peppery line of chaffing for the breakfast
table, the same dealing with the visit of a pretty little French girl to
the irreproachable apartment and the various methods by which Anthony
Fry could explain the matter to the management, should he be requested
to explain.

Yet David was still with them and--if quiet down there meant
anything--with them to stay. Anthony's trouble remained with him this
morning; even now, undoubtedly, he was sitting in there and hurling
opportunity again and again at David's invulnerable armor--and if the
idiotic idea had taken as firm a grip as that the end might be days
away, just as it had been in the case of the yeggmen.

It gibed not at all with Boller's plans for his visit to Anthony. He
caressed his chin and scowled for a little; later, he smiled griml