“That depends upon you.”

“I’m behaving finely,” he vaunted.  “I usually act much worse than I have to-night, but I like you.  I like you differently—­ understand?  Not like the other girls.  You’re so beautiful!  Makes me dizzy.  You forgive my little joke, eh?”

“What joke?”

“Meeting you the way I did to-night.  Jim’s nice boy—­obliged to him.”

“I see.  Then it was all planned?”

He nodded vehemently and nearly lost his balance.

“How much—­did you pay him?” Lorelei queried, with, difficulty.

Mr. Wharton waved his hand in a magnificent gesture.  “What’s money, anyhow?  Somebody’s bound to get it.”

“Fifty dollars?”

He looked at her reproachfully.  “That’s an insult to Jim—­he’s a business man, he is.  More than that—­Oh yes, and I’ll take care of him again—­this very night.  I’ll stake him.  He knows a place.”

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked, after a pause.

Wharton assured her with abnormal emphasis that her lightest wish was law.

“Then go straight home from here,” she pleaded.

“I say, that’s not fair.”  Bob looked ludicrously shocked.  “I promised Jim—­Wouldn’t have me break a sacred promise, would you?  We’re expected—­a little game all arranged where we can bust it quick.  If you hear a loud noise—­that’ll be Melcher going broke.”

“Melcher!” Lorelei looked sharply at her brother, who was approaching with her wraps, and noted that he was perfectly sober.  A moment later she checked Bob in the act of giving directions to the cab-driver: 

“Wait.  Where do you live, Mr. Wharton?”

“The Charlevoix.”  It was the most expensive bachelor apartment building in the city.

“Drive to the Charlevoix,” she told the chauffeur.

“Hold on, Sis,” cried Jim.  “We’re going to take you home first.”

“No.”

“But—­” Jim saw in his sister’s face something that brought a smothered oath to his lips.  Drawing her out of hearing, he muttered, angrily, “Mind your business; I’ve got something on.”

“I know you have.”  She met his eyes unflinchingly.  “But you sha’n’t rob him.”

Jim thrust his thin face close to hers, and she saw that it was distorted with rage.  “If you don’t want to go home, stay here.  He’s going with me.”

“We’ll see.”

She turned, but he seized her roughly.  “What are you going to do?” he demanded.

“I’m going to tell him he’s being taken to a crooked gambling-house, and that you’re working for Max Melcher.  He isn’t too drunk to understand that.”

Her brother clenched his fist menacingly, but she did not recoil, and he thought better of his impulse.

“Are you grand-standing?” he queried, brutally.  “Are you stuck on the boob? or do you want your bit?”

Without reply she walked back to the cab, redirected the driver to the Charlevoix, then seated herself beside Wharton, who was already sinking into a stupor.  Jim slunk in behind her, and they were whirled southward.