real pleasure in her stately loveliness, and turned to Dorothy, who, her face alight with greeting, came frankly toward him. From the moment of their first meeting there had been instant understanding and liking. Gard took her outstretched hands with an almost fatherly thrill.

"You are undoubtedly a pleasing sight, Miss Marteen," he smiled; "and a long life and a merry one to you. Your daughter does you credit, dear lady," he added, turning to his hostess.

Dorothy, bubbling over with enthusiasm, claimed his hand again. "It was so sweet of you to send me that necklace in those wonderful flowers. See--I'm wearing it." She fondled a slender seed pearl rope at her throat. "Mother told me it was far too beautiful and I must send it back. But I was most undutiful. I said I wouldn't--just wouldn't. I know you picked it out for me yourself--now, didn't you?" He nodded somewhat whimsically. "There! I told mother so; and it would be rude, most rude, not to accept it--wouldn't it?"

He laughed gruffly. "It certainly would--and, really, you know your mother has a mania for refusing things. Why, I owe her--never mind, I won't tell you now--but I would have felt very much hurt, Miss Debutante, if you'd thrown back my little present. I'm sure I selected something quite modest and inconspicuous.... Dear me, I'm blocking the whole doorway. Pardon me."

He stepped back, nodding here and there to an acquaintance. Finally catching sight of his sister in the dining room, he joined her, and stood for a moment gazing at the commonplace comedy of presentations.

Miss Gard yawned. "My dear Marcus, who ever heard of you attending a tea? Really, I didn't know you knew these people so well."

Gard was glad of this opportunity. His sister had a praiseworthy manner of distributing his slightest word--of which he not infrequently took advantage.

"Well, you see, I was indebted to Marteen for a number of kindnesses in the early days, though we'd rather drifted apart before he died--had some slight business differences, in fact. But I'd like to do all I can for his widow and that really sweet child of theirs. I have a small nest egg in trust for her--some investments I advised Mrs. Marteen to make. Who is that chap who's so devoted?" he asked suddenly, switching the subject, as his quick eye noted the change of Dorothy's expression under the admiring glances of a tall young man of athletic proportions, whose face seemed strangely familiar.

Miss Gard lorgnetted. "That? Oh, that's only Teddy Mahr, Victor Mahr's son. He was a famous 'whaleback'--I think that's what they call it--on the Yale football team. They say that he's the one thing, besides himself, that the old cormorant really cares about."

Marcus Gard stiffened, and his jaw protruded with a peculiar bunching of the cheek muscles, characteristic of him in his moments of irritation. He looked again at Dorothy, absorbed in the conversation of the "whaleback" from Yale, recognized the visitor at the Denning box, and, with an untranslatable grunt, abruptly took his departure, leaving his sister to wonder over the strangeness of his actions.

Once out of the house, his anger blazed freely, and his chauffeur received a lecture on the driving and care of machines that was as undeserved as it was vigorous and emphatic.

Moved by a strange mingling of anger, curiosity and jealousy, Gard's first act on entering his library was to telephone to a well known detective agency--no surprising thing on his part, for not infrequently he made use of their services to obtain sundry details as to the movements of his opponents, and when, as often happened, cranks threatened the thorny path of wealth and prominence, he had found protection with the plain clothes men.

"Jordan," he growled over the wire, "I want Brencherly up here right away. Is he there?....All right. I want some information he may be able to give me offhand. If not--well, send him now."

He hung up the receiver and paced the room, his eyes on the rug, his hands behind his back, disgusted and angry with his own anger and disgust.

Half an hour had passed, when a young man of dapper appearance was ushered in. Gard looked up, frowning, into the mild blue eyes of the detective.

"Hello, Brencherly. Know Victor Mahr?"

"Yes," said the youth.

"Tell me about him," snapped Gard. "Sit down."

Brencherly sat. "Well, he's the head of the lumber people. Rated at six millions. Got one son, named Theodore; went to Yale. Wife was Mary Theobald, of Cincinnati--"

Gard interrupted. "I don't want the 'who's who,' Brencherly, or I wouldn't have sent for you. I want to know the worst about him. Cut loose."

"Well, his deals haven't been square, you know. He's had two or three nasty suits against him; he's got more enemies than you can shake a stick at. His confidential lawyer is Twickenbaur, the biggest scoundrel unhung. Of course nobody knows that; Twickenbaur's reputation is too bad--Mahr goes to your lawyers, apparently."

"There isn't any blackmail in any of that," the older man snarled.

"Oh!" cried the youth, his blue eyes lighting. "Oh, it's blackmail you want! Well, the only thing that looks that way is a story that nobody has been able to substantiate. We heard it as we hear lots of things that don't get out; but there was a yarn that Mahr was a bigamist; that his first wife was living when he married Miss Theobald. She died when the boy was born, and in that case she was never his legal wife, and of course now never can be. The other woman's dead, too, they say; but who's to prove it? That would be a fine tale for the coin, if anyone had the goods to show."

"I suppose the office looked that up when they got it, didn't they? Good for the coin, eh? What did you find?"

The informant actually blushed. "You aren't accusing us, Mr. Gard!"

"Accusing nothing. I know a few things, Brencherly, remember. Baker Allen told me your office held him up good and plenty to turn in a different report when his wife employed you, and you 'got the goods on him.' Now, don't give me any bluff. I want facts, and I pay you for them, don't I? Well, when you got that story, you looked it up hard, didn't you?"

Brencherly, thoroughly cowed, nodded assent. "But we couldn't get a line on it anywhere. If there were any proofs, somebody else had them--that's all."

"U'm!" said Marcus, and sat a moment silent. When he spoke again it was with an apparent frankness that would have deceived the devil himself. "See here, I'll tell you my reason for all this, so perhaps you can answer more intelligently. Martin Marteen was a friend of mine, and I'm interested in his little daughter, who has just come out. Theodore Mahr is attentive to her, and I'm not keen about it, and what you tell me about his father doesn't make me any happier. What sort of a woman is Mrs. Marteen--from your point of view? Of course I know her well socially, but what's her rating with you?"

"Ai, sir," Brencherly answered promptly. "Exceptionally fine woman--very intelligent. I should say that, with a word from you, she ought to be able to handle the situation, and any girl living. But the boy's all right, Mr. Gard, even if Mahr isn't. And after all, there may not be a word of truth in that romance I spun to you. We couldn't land a thing. What made us think there might be something in it was that we got it second hand from an old servant of Mahr's. He told the man that told us; but the old boy's gone, too."

Gard rose from his chair and resumed his pacing. Brencherly remained seated, patiently waiting. Presently Gard turned on him.

"That'll do, Brencherly. You may go; and don't let me catch you tipping Mahr off that I've been having you rate him, do you understand?"

The detective sprang to his feet with alacrity. "Oh, no, Mr. Gard--never a word. You know, sir, you're one of our very best clients."

Left alone, Gard sat down