“You know it was your father’s wish that we be married,” he was saying, “and I know that he would be happy if we had the ceremony performed at once.”

His eyes narrowed as he said this, but Eva was too preoccupied to see it.  With a shudder, ever so slight, she looked up at his handsome face and spoke.

“I will not even speak of marriage until my father recovers, Paul, and I don’t know how you can ask me to at such a time.”

She was not thinking so much of her father as of a certain young chemist who had risked his life for her.  Why had fate thrown him in her way, she wondered.  What was there about Quentin Locke that compelled her attention—­that made her feel secure when he was about?  What was the difference between the young chemist and Paul that she felt perfect trust in the one whom she had known only a short time and distrust and uncertainty in the other to whom she was about to be married?

She hung her head and went into the drawing-room, leaving Paul standing there.  He looked after her, and a slight smile crossed his face as he thought of what a fool she was to think that he cared for her.  His self-assurance led him to believe that the reason that Eva was not consenting to his proposal was indeed because of her father’s condition, for he little dreamed, nor would his egotism permit him to believe, that anything else could be the case.

His mouth hardened in a subtle smile as he sauntered after Eva to bid her farewell.  He remembered that De Luxe Dora was waiting outside for him in her speedster.

He had made this paramour of his take him to the very door of his fiancee’s home, and there wait until he had paid his respects to the moneyed lady who would make happiness possible by supplying him with the funds to pursue his pleasures and insure his father’s hold on the International Patents, Incorporated.

Paul looked at his watch, then, after a few words of condolence which would hardly sound sincere from any one less gifted, made a hurried departure toward the corner where the speedster was waiting.

“Who was the funny gink that hurried by a little while ago?” queried Dora, in the vernacular of her calling.  “He gave me the double O as though he had something on me.”

“That’s a fellow we’ve got to look out for, kid,” answered Paul, in the same terms by which he was addressed, for, if nothing else, Paul could be as much at home in the underworld as in a mansion on the Drive.  “Brent claimed that he was a chemist before he went ‘bugs,’” continued Paul, “but I have my doubts; in fact, I’m very leery of him because I think he’s a fly cop.”

He took his place beside Dora, who started the car and headed down-town.

After Paul’s departure Eva hurried to her father’s room and tried to comfort him.  He was seated in a chair, staring blankly ahead of him.  He was quieter now, but his body twitched nervously from time to time.