Without comment I followed Larry Moore, serving his mood as he immediately left the avenue and went east.  At first he went with excited strides, then he slowed down to a profound and musing gait, then he halted, laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, and said: 

“Get into the car, Bob.  Come up to the rooms.”

I understood that he wished to speak to me of what had happened, and I followed.  We went thus, without another word exchanged, to his rooms, and entered the little parlor hung with the trophies of his career, which I looked at with some curiosity.  On the mantel in the center I saw at once a large photograph of the Hon. Joseph Gilday, a corporation lawyer of whom we reporters told many hard things, a picture I did not expect to find here among the photographs of the sporting celebrities who had sent their regards to my friend of the diamond.  In some perplexity I approached and saw across the bottom written in large firm letters:  “I’m proud to know you, Larry Moore.”

I smiled, for the tribute of the great man of the law seemed incongruous here to me, who knew of old my simple-minded, simple-hearted friend whom, the truth be told, I patronized perforce.  Then I looked about more carefully, and saw a dozen photographs of a woman, sometimes alone, sometimes holding a pretty child, and the faces were the faces I had seen in the victoria.  I feigned not to have seen them; but Larry, who had watched me, said: 

“Look again, Bob; for that is the woman you saw in the carriage, and that is the child.”

So I took up a photograph and looked at it long.  The face had something more dangerous than beauty in it—­the face of a Cleopatra with a look in the deep restless eyes I did not fancy; but I did not tell that to Larry Moore.  Then I put it back in its place and turned and said gravely: 

“Are you sure that you want to tell me, Larry Moore?”

“I do,” he said.  “Sit down.”

He did not seek preliminaries, as I should have done, but began at once, simply and directly—­doubtless he was retelling the story more to himself than to me.

“She was called Fanny Montrose,” he said, “a slip of a girl, with wonderful golden hair, and big black eyes that made me tremble, the day I went into the factory at Bridgeport, the day I fell in love.  ’I’m Larry Moore; you may have heard of me,’ I said, going straight up to her when the whistle blew that night, ’and I’d like to walk home with you, Fanny Montrose.’

“She drew back sort of quick, and I thought she’d been hearing tales of me up in Fall River; so I said:  ’I only meant to be polite.  You may have heard a lot of bad of me, and a lot of it’s true, but you never heard of Larry Moore’s being disrespectful to a lady,’ and I looked her in the eye and said:  ‘Will you let me walk home with you, Fanny Montrose?’

“She swung on her foot a moment, and then she said:  ‘I will.’

“I heard a laugh go up at that, and turned round, with the bit in my teeth; but it was only the women, and you can’t touch them.  Fanny Montrose hurried on, and I saw she was upset by it, so I said humbly:  ‘You’re not sorry now, are you?’