Merkle was watching his friend’s son with a frown.

“You have just left the personification of everything I detest,” he volunteered.  “You heard what his father said about raising him —­how he taught Bob to drink when he drank and follow in his footsteps?  Well, sometimes the theory works and a boy grows up with open eyes, but more often it turns out as it has in this case.  Bob’s an alcoholic, a common drunkard, and he’ll end in an institution, sure.  He’d be there now if it wasn’t for Hannibal’s money.  He’s run the gamut of extravagance; he’s done everything freakish that there is to do.  But that isn’t what I want to say to you.  Help me feed these foolish goldfish while I talk.”

“Do you think anybody would understand if they overheard you?  I fancied you and I were the only sober ones left.”

“Some of the girls are all right.”  Merkle eyed his companion closely.  “Don’t you drink?”

“I daren’t, even if I cared to.”

“Daren’t?”

“You’ll notice that most of the pretty girls are sober.”

“Right.”

“I have nothing but my looks.  Wouldn’t I be a fool to sacrifice them?”

“You seem to be sensible, Miss Knight.  Something tells me you’re very much the right sort.  I know you’re trying to get ahead, and—­ I can help you if you’ll help me.”

“Help you ’get ahead’?”

He smiled.  “Hardly.  I need an agent, and I’ll pay a good price to the right person.”

“How mysterious!”

“I’ll be plain.  That affair yonder”—­he nodded toward Jarvis Hammon and Lilas Lynn—­“strikes you as a—­well, as a flirtation of the ordinary sort.  In one way it is; in another way it is something very different, for he’s in earnest.  He thinks he is injuring no one but himself with this business, and he is willing to pay the price; but the fact is he is putting other people in peril—­me among the rest.  I’m not arguing for his wife nor the two Misses Hammon.  I don’t go much on the ordinary kinds of morality, and nobody outside of a man’s family has the right to question his private life so long as it is private in its consequences.  But when his secret conduct affects his business affairs, when it endangers vast interests in which others are concerned, then his associates are entitled to take a hand.  Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.  But you don’t want me; you want a detective.”

“My dear child, we have them by the score.  We hire them by the year, and they have told us all they can.  We need inside information.”

The girl’s answer was made with her habitual self-possession.

“I’ve heard about such things.  I’ve heard about men prying into each other’s private affairs, pretending to be friends when they were enemies, and using scandal for business ends.  Lilas Lynn is my friend—­at least in a way—­and Mr. Hammon is my host, just as he is yours.  Oh, I know; this isn’t a conventional party, and I’m not here as a conventional guest—­inside the little coin-purse he gave me is a hundred-dollar bill—­but, just the same, I don’t care to act as your spy.”