Doyle returned to his old place on the hearth-rug, still thoughtful.  He had paid no attention to Aker’s views on Prohibition, nor to the paper laid upon the desk in the center of the room.

“Do you know that that girl in the hall will be worth forty million dollars some day?”

“Some money,” said Akers, calmly.  “Which reminds me, Jim, that I’ve got to have a raise.  And pretty soon.”

“You get plenty, if you’d leave women alone.”

“Tell them to leave me alone, then,” said Akers, stretching out his long legs.  “All right.  We’ll talk about that, after dinner.  What about this forty millions?”

Doyle looked at him quickly.  Akers’ speech about women had crystallized the vague plans which Lily’s arrival had suddenly given rise to.  He gave the young man a careful scrutiny, from his handsome head to his feet, and smiled.  It had occurred to him that the Cardew family would loathe a man of Louis Akers’ type with an entire and whole-hearted loathing.

“You might try to make her have a pleasant evening,” he suggested dryly.  “And, to do that, it might be as well to remember a number of things, one of which is that she is accustomed to the society of gentlemen.”

“All right, old dear,” said Akers, without resentment.

“She hates her grandfather like poison,” Doyle went on.  “She doesn’t know it, but she does.  A little education, and it is just possible—­”

“Get Olga.  I’m no kindergarten teacher.”

“You haven’t seen her in the light yet.”

Louis Akers smiled and carefully settled his tie.

Like Doyle, Akers loved the game of life, and he liked playing for high stakes.  He had joined forces with Doyle because the game was dangerous and exciting, rather than because of any real conviction.  Doyle had a fanatic faith, with all his calculation, but Louis Akers had only calculation and ambition.  A practicing attorney in the city, a specialist in union law openly, a Red in secret, he played his triple game shrewdly and with zest.

Doyle turned to go, then stopped and came back.  “I was forgetting something,” he said, slowly.  “What possessed you to take that Boyd girl to the Searing Building the other night?”

“Who told you that?”

“Woslosky saw you coming out.”

“I had left something there,” Akers said sullenly.  “That’s the truth, whether you believe it or not.  I wasn’t there two minutes.”

“You’re a fool, Louis,” Doyle said coldly.  “You’ll play that game once too often.  What happens to you is your own concern, but what may happen to me is mine.  And I’ll take mighty good care it doesn’t happen.”