“Well!” she said, “what do you want?  Who are you?”

“My name can scarcely matter to you,” Kelson responded, “though my business may.  I have been engaged to watch you, and am fully posted as to your meetings and correspondence with the Rev. J.T.  Calthorpe.”

“I don’t understand you,” the lady said, her cheeks flaming.  “You have made a mistake—­a very serious mistake for you.”

For a moment Kelson’s heart failed.  He was still a clerk, with all the humility of an office stool and shining trousers’ seat thick on him, whilst she was a grande dame accustomed to the bows and scrapes of employers as well as employed.

Several people passed by and stared at him—­as he thought—­suspiciously, and he felt that this was the most critical time in his life, and unless he pulled through, smartly in fact, he would be done once and for all.  If he didn’t make haste, too, the woman would undoubtedly call a policeman.  It was this thought as well as—­though, perhaps, hardly as much as—­the look of her that stimulated Kelson to action.  He hated behaving badly to women; but was this thing, dressed in a skirt that fitted like a glove and showed up every detail of her figure—­this thing with the paint on her cheeks, and eyebrows, and lips—­artistically done, perhaps, but done all the same—­this thing all loaded with jewellery and buttons—­this thing—­a woman!  No!  She was not—­she was only a millionaire’s plaything—­brainless, heartless—­a hobby that cost thousands, whilst countless men such as he—­starved.  He detested—­abominated such luxuries!  And thus nerved he retorted, borrowing some of her imperiousness—­

“Do you deny, madam, that for the past two hours you’ve been sitting on the sofa of the end room of the third floor of No. 216, Market Street, flirting with the Rev. J.T.  Calthorpe, whom you call ‘Mickey-moo’; that you gave him a photo you had taken at Bell’s Studio in Clay Street, specially for him; that you gave him five greenbacks to the value of one hundred and fifty dollars, and that you’ve planned a moonlight promenade with him to-morrow, when your husband will be in Denver?”

“Don’t talk so loud,” the lady said in a low voice.  “Walk along with me a little and then we shan’t be noticed.  I see you do know a good deal—­how, I can’t imagine, unless you were hidden somewhere in the room.  Who has employed you to watch me?”

“That, madam, I can’t say,” Kelson truthfully responded.

“And I can’t think,” the lady said, “unless it is some woman enemy.  But, after all, you can’t do much since you hold no proofs—­your word alone will count for nothing.”

“Ah, but I have strong corroborative evidence,” Kelson retorted.  “I have the testimony of at least two other people who know quite as much as I do.”

“Adventurers like yourself,” the lady sneered.  “My husband would neither believe you nor your friends.”

“He would believe your letters, any way,” said Kelson.