“Yes,” he muttered, as a cloud spread over his face at not being able, as usual, to let the gay life put the truth out of his mind.  “Yes, I have been using—­their funds.”

As if a switch had been turned, the light broke on Constance.  She saw herself face to face with one of the dark shadows in the great city of high lights.

“How?” she asked simply, leaning forward over the table.

There was no resisting her.  Quickly he told her all.

“At first with what little money of my own I had I played.  Then I began to sign I O U’s and notes.  Now I have been taking blank stock certificates, some of those held as treasury stock in the company’s safe.  They have never been issued, so that by writing in the signatures of myself and the other officers necessary, I have been able to use it to pay off my losses in gambling.”

As he unfolded to her the plan which he had adopted, Constance listened in amazement.

“And you know that you are watched,” she repeated, changing the subject, and sensing rather than seeing that Drummond was watching them then.

“Yes,” he continued freely.  “The International Surety, in which I’m bonded, has a sort of secret service of its own, I understand.  It is the eye that is never closed, but is screened from the man under bond.  When you go into the Broadway night life too often, for instance,” he pursued, waving his hand about at the gay tables, “run around in fast motors with faster company—­well, they know it.  Who is watching, I do not know.  But with me it will be as it has been when others came to the end.  Some day they will come to me, and they are going to say, ’We don’t like your conduct.  Where do you get this money?’ They will know, then, too.  But before that time comes I want to win, to be in a position to tell them to go—­”

Halsey clenched his fist.  It was evident that he did not intend to quit, no matter what the odds against him.

Constance thought of the silent figure of Drummond at the other table—­watching, watching.  She felt sure that it was to him that the Surety Company had turned over the work of shadowing Halsey.  Day after day, probably, the unobtrusive detective had been trailing Halsey from the moment he left his apartment until the time when he returned, if he did return.  There was nothing of his goings and comings that was not already an open book to them.  Of what use was it, then, for Halsey to fight!

It was a situation such as she delighted in.  She had made up her mind.  She would help Haddon Halsey to beat the law.

Already it seemed as if he knew that their positions had been reversed.  He had started to warn her; she now was saving him.

Yet even then he showed the better side of his nature.

“There is some one else, Mrs. Dunlap,” he remarked earnestly, “who needs your help even more than I do.”

It had cost him something to say that.  He had not been able to accept her help, even under false pretenses.  Eagerly he watched to see whether jealousy of the other woman played any part with her.