His first visit resulted merely in a brief interview with Mr. Keen, who smilingly reported progress and suavely bowed him out.  He looked about for Miss Southerland as he was leaving, but did not see her.

On his second visit he mustered the adequate courage to ask for her, and experienced a curiously sickly sensation when informed that Miss Southerland was no longer employed in the bureau of statistics, having been promoted to an outside position of great responsibility.  His third visit proved anything but satisfactory.  He sidled and side-stepped for ten minutes before he dared ask Mr. Keen where Miss Southerland had gone.  And when the Tracer replied that, considering the business he had undertaken for Mr. Gatewood, he really could not see why Mr. Gatewood should interest himself concerning the whereabouts of Miss Southerland, the young man had nothing to say, and escaped as soon as possible, enraged at himself, at Mr. Keen, and vaguely holding the entire world guilty of conspiracy.

He had no definite idea of what he wanted, except that his desire to see Miss Southerland again seemed out of all proportion to any reasonable motive for seeing her.  Occasional fits of disgust with himself for what he had done were varied with moody hours of speculation.  Suppose Mr. Keen did find his ideal?  What of it?  He no longer wanted to see her.  He had no use for her.  The savor of the enterprise had gone stale in his mouth; he was by turns worried, restless, melancholy, sulky, uneasy.  A vast emptiness pervaded his life.  He smoked more and more and ate less and less.  He even disliked to see others eat, particularly Kerns.

And one exquisite May morning he came down to breakfast and found the unspeakable Kerns immersed in grapefruit, calm, well balanced, and bland.

“How-de-dee, dear friend?” said that gentleman affably.  “Any news from Cupid this beautiful May morning?”

“No; and I don’t want any,” returned Gatewood, sorting his mail with a scowl and waving away his fruit.

“Tut, tut!  Lovers must be patient.  Dearie will be found some day—­”

“Some day,” snarled Gatewood, “I shall destroy you, Tommy.”

“Naughty!  Naughty!” reflected Kerns, pensively assaulting the breakfast food.  “Lovey must not worry; Dovey shall be found, and all will be joy and gingerbread. . . .  If you throw that orange I’ll run screaming to the governors.  Aren’t you ashamed—­just because you’re in a love tantrum!”

“One more word and you get it!”

“May I sing as I trifle with this frugal fare, dear friend?  My heart is so happy that I should love to warble a few wild notes—­”

He paused to watch his badgered victim dispose of a Martini.

“I wonder,” he mused, “if you’d like me to tell you what a cocktail before breakfast does to the lining of your stomach?  Would you?”

“No.  I suppose it’s what the laundress does to my linen.  What do I care?”