“I was a little late coming from the office to-night,” said the younger man, with an embarrassed laugh, “and I thought I’d drop in here on my way home.  Pretty rough outside, ain’t it?”

“Yes, it’s raining and blowing; so I thought I wouldn’t go up to the plaza for a cab, but wait here for the first one that dropped a fare at the door, and take it on to the hotel.”

“Hold on, and I’ll go with you,” said the young man carelessly.  “I say, Brimmer,” he added, after a pause, with a sudden assumption of larger gayety, “there’s nothing mean about Belle Montgomery, eh?  She’s a whole team and the little dog under the wagon, ain’t she?  Deuced pretty woman!—­no make-up there, eh?”

“She certainly is a fine woman,” said Brimmer gravely, borrowing his companion’s lorgnette.  “By the way, Markham, do you usually keep an opera-glass in your office in case of an emergency like this?”

“I reckon it was forgotten in my overcoat pocket,” said Markham, with an embarrassed smile.

“Left over from the last time,” said Brimmer, rising from his seat.  “Well, I’m going now—­I suppose I’ll have to try the plaza.”

“Hold on a moment.  She’s coming on now—­there she is!” He stopped, his anxious eyes fixed upon the stage.  Brimmer turned at the same moment in no less interested absorption.  A quick hush ran through the theatre; the men bent eagerly forward as the Queen of Olympus swept down to the footlights, and, with a ravishing smile, seemed to envelop the whole theatre in a gracious caress.

“You know, ’pon my word, Brimmer, she’s a very superior woman,” gasped Markham excitedly, when the goddess had temporarily withdrawn.  “These fellows here,” he said, indicating the audience contemptuously, “don’t know her,—­think she’s all that sort of thing, you know,—­and come here just to look at her.  But she’s very accomplished—­in fact, a kind of literary woman.  Writes devilish good poetry—­only took up the stage on account of domestic trouble:  drunken husband that beat her—­regular affecting story, you know.  These sap-headed fools don’t, of course, know that.  No, sir; she’s a remarkable woman!  I say, Brimmer, look here!  I”—­he hesitated, and then went on more boldly, as if he had formed a sudden resolution.  “What have you got to do to-night?”

Brimmer, who had been lost in abstraction, started slightly, and said,—­

“I—­oh!  I’ve got an appointment with Keene.  You know he’s off by the steamer—­day after to-morrow?”

“What!  He’s not going off on that wild-goose chase, after all?  Why, the man’s got Excelsior on the brain!” He stopped as he looked at Brimmer’s cold face, and suddenly colored.  “I mean his plan—­his idea’s all nonsense—­you know that!”

“I certainly don’t agree with him,” began Brimmer gravely; “but”—­