They left the Park and the car jolted them quickly now over the uneven asphalt to the palace of pleasure, where already the two advance guards were holding one of the best tables in a house crowded with all classes from debutantes to debauchees.

“Diamond Jack” Braden was a heavy-set man with a debonnaire, dapper way about him.  He wore a flower in his buttonhole, a smart touch which seemed very fetching, evidently, to the artistic Vera.

Constance fell to studying him, as she did all men and women.  “His hands betray him,” she said to herself, as she was introduced.

They were in fact shielded from view as he bowed, one with the thumb tucked in the corner of his trousers pocket, the other behind his back.

“He is hiding something,” flashed through her mind intuitively.  And, when she analyzed it, she felt still that there was nothing fanciful about the idea.  It was simply a little unconscious piece of evidence.

From the start the cabaret was pretty rapid.  When they entered, two of the performers were rendering the Apache dance with an abandon that improved on its namesake.  Scarcely had they finished when the orchestra began all over again, and a couple of diners from the tables glided past them on the dancing floor, then another couple and another.

“Tanguez-vous?” bowed Braden, leaning over to Stella.

“Oui, je tanguerai,” she nodded, catching the spirit of the place.

It left Warrington and Constance at the table with Vera, and as Constance looked eagerly after the graceful form of the little actress, Warrington asked, “Will you dance!”

“No, thank you,” she said, trying him out.  “I haven’t had time to learn these new steps.  And, besides, I have had a bad day in the market.  Steel, Reading, everything is off.  Not that I have lost much—­but it’s what I haven’t made.”

Warrington, who had been about to repeat his question to Vera, turned suddenly.  This was something new to him, to meet a woman like Constance.  If she knew about other stocks, she must know about the Syndicate.  Already he had felt an attraction toward Constance physically, an attraction of maturity which somehow or other seemed more satisfying, at least novel, in contrast with, the gay butterfly talk of Stella.

He did not ask Vera to dance.  Instead he began banteringly to discuss Wall Street and in five minutes he found out that she really knew as much about certain features of the game as he did.  She did not need to be told that Alfred Warrington, plunger, man about town, was quite unexpectedly struck by her personality.

Now and then she could see Stella eyeing her covertly.  The little actress had had, like many another, a few dollars to invest or rather with which to speculate.  Her method had been usually to make a quick profit on a tip from some Wall Street friend.  Often, if the tip went wrong, the friend would return the money to the unsuspecting little girl, with some muttered apology about having been unable to get it placed in time, and then, as the market went down or up, seeing that it was too late, adding a congratulation that at least the principal was saved if there was no profit.