In a taxicab Gregory sat tense and erect, gnawing at his blond mustache.  After a time he said: 

“What are you after, in all this?  The story, I suppose.  And the money.  I daresay you’re not doing it for love.”

Bassett surveyed him appraisingly.

“You wouldn’t understand my motives if I told you.  As a matter of fact, he doesn’t want the money.”

Gregory sneered.

“Don’t kid yourself,” he said.  “However, as a matter of fact I don’t think he’ll take it.  It might cost too much.  Where is he?  Shooting pills again?”

“You’ll see him in about five minutes.”

If the news was a surprise Gregory gave no evidence of it, except to comment: 

“You’re a capable person, aren’t you?  I’ll bet you could tune a piano if you were put to it.”

He carried the situation well, the reporter had to admit; the only evidence he gave of strain was that the hands with which he lighted a cigarette were unsteady.  He surveyed the obscure hotel at which the cab stopped with a sneering smile, and settled his collar as he looked it over.

“Not advertising to the world that you’re in town, I see.”

“We’ll do that, just as soon as we’re ready.  Don’t worry.”

The laugh he gave at that struck unpleasantly on Bassett’s ears.  But inside the building he lost some of his jauntiness.  “Queer place to find Judson Clark,” he said once.

And again: 

“You’d better watch him when I go in.  He may bite me.”

To which Bassett grimly returned:  “He’s probably rather particular what he bites.”

He was uneasily conscious that Gregory, while nervous and tense, was carrying the situation with a certain assurance.  If he was acting it was very good acting.  And that opinion was strengthened when he threw open the door and Gregory advanced into the room.

“Well, Clark,” he said, coolly.  “I guess you didn’t expect to see me, did you?”

He made no offer to shake hands as Dick turned from the window, nor did Dick make any overtures.  But there was no enmity at first in either face; Gregory was easy and assured, Dick grave, and, Bassett thought, slightly impatient.  From that night in his apartment the reporter had realized that he was constantly fighting a sort of passive resistance in Dick, a determination not at any cost to involve Beverly.  Behind that, too, he felt that still another battle was going on, one at which he could only guess, but which made Dick somber at times and grimly quiet always.

“I meant to look you up,” was his reply to Gregory’s nonchalant greeting.

“Well, your friend here did that for you,” Gregory said, and smiled across at Bassett.  “He has his own methods, and I’ll say they’re effectual.”

He took off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, and threw a swift, appraising glance at Dick.  It was on Dick that he was banking, not on Bassett.  He hated and feared Bassett.  He hated Dick, but he was not afraid of him.  He lighted a cigarette and faced Dick with a malicious smile.