“Men are generally afraid of the big stakes,” she remarked, flicking the ash from her cigarette.  “They will cheat and lie for halfpennies, but they are bad gamblers when life or death —­ the big things are in the balance.  Bah!” she went on.  “Father, I want Jerry Gardner to come and see me.”

“If you can’t make him come, my dear,” the professor said, “I am sure it will be of no use my trying.”

“He has had my letter,” she continued, half to herself; “he has had my letter and he does not come.”

“There is nothing to be done but wait,” her father decided.

“And meanwhile,” she went on, “supposing he were to discover Beatrice, supposing they two were to come together; supposing he were to tell her what he knows and she were to tell him what she guessed!”

The professor buried his face in his hands.  Elizabeth threw her cigarette away with an impatient gesture.

“What an idiot I am!” she declared.  “What is the use of wasting time like this?”

There was a knock at the door.  A trim-looking French maid presented herself.  She addressed her mistress in voluble French.  A coiffeur and a manicurist were waiting in the next apartment; it was time that Madame habited herself.  The professor listened to these announcements with an air of half-admiring wonder.

“I suppose I must be going,” he said, rising to his feet.  “There is just one thing I should like to ask you, Elizabeth, if I may, before I go.”

“Well?”

“Who was the young man whom I met here just now?”

“Why do you ask that?” she demanded.

“I really do not know,” her father replied, thoughtfully, “except that his appearance seemed a little singular.  In some respects he appeared so commonplace.  His clothes and bearing, in fact, were so ordinary that I was surprised to find him here with you.  And, on the other hand, his face—­you must remember, my dear, that this is entirely a professional instinct; I am still interested in faces—­”

“Quite so,” she admitted.  “Go on.  The young man rather puzzles me myself.  I should like to hear what you make of him.  What did you think of his face?”

“There was something powerful about it,” he declared, “something dogged, splendid, narrow, impossible,—­the sort of face which belongs to a man who achieves great things because he is too stupid to recognize failure, even when it has him in its arms and its fingers are upon his throat.  That young man has qualities, my dear, I am sure.  Mind you, at present they are dormant, but he has qualities.”

She led him to the door.

“My dear father,” she said, “sometimes I really respect you.  If you should come across that young man again, keep your eye upon him.  He knows one thing at least which I wish he would tell us —­ he knows where Beatrice is.”

Her father looked at her in amazement.

“He knows where Beatrice is and he has not told you?”