Graeme listened blankly.  It was true.  His fancied security in the city was over.  He had fled to New York because there, in the mass of people, he could best sink his old identity and take on a new.

She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table and looked deeply into his eyes.  “Let me take those securities,” she said.  “I will be able to do safely what you cannot do.”

Graeme did not seem now to consider the fortune for which he had risked so much.  The woman before him was enough.

“Will you?” he asked eagerly.

“I will do with them as I would for myself, better, because—­because it is a trust,” she accepted.

“More than a trust,” he added, as he leaned over in turn and in spite of other diners in the restaurant took her hand.

There are times when the rest of the critical world and its frigid opinions are valueless.  Constance did not withdraw her hand.  Rather she watched in his eyes the subtle physical change in the man that her very touch produced, watched and felt a response in herself.

Quickly she withdrew her hand.  “I must go,” she said rather hurriedly, “it is getting late.”

“Constance,” he whispered, as he helped her on with her wraps, brushing the waiter aside that he might himself perform any duty that involved even touching her, “Constance, I am in your hands—­ absolutely.”

It had been pleasant to dine with him.  It was more pleasant now to feel her influence and power over him.  She knew it, though she only half admitted it.  They seemed for the moment to walk on air, as they strolled, chatting, out to a taxicab.

But as the cab drew up before her own apartment, the familiar associations of even the entrance brought her back to reality suddenly.  He handed her out, and the excitement of the evening was over.  She saw the thing in its true light.  This was the beginning, not the end.

“Graeme,” she said, as she lingered for a moment at the door.  “To-morrow we must find a place where you can hide.”

“I may see you, though?” he asked anxiously.

“Of course.  Ring me up in the morning, Graeme.  Good-night,” and she was whisked up in the elevator, leaving Mackenzie with a sense of loss and loneliness.

“By the Lord,” he muttered, as he swung down the street in preference to taking a cab, “what a woman that is!”

Together the next day they sought out a place where he could remain hidden.  Mackenzie would have been near her, but Constance knew better.  She chose a bachelor apartment where the tenants never arose before noon and where night was turned into day.  Men would not ask questions.  In an apartment like her own there was nothing but gossip.

In the daytime he stayed at home.  Only at night did he go forth and then under her direction in the most unfrequented ways.

Every day Constance went to Wall Street, where she had established confidential relations with a number of brokers.  Together they planned the campaigns; she executed them with consummate skill and adroitness.