She opened her palms, showing the red souvenirs of the coarse strands.  Almost unconsciously she placed her soft fingers within Shirley’s for a brief instant.  She quickly drew them away, sensing a blush beneath the cosmetics, glad that he could not detect it.  That gentle contact thrilled Shirley again, even as the dear memory of the tired cheek against his shoulder, during the automobile trip of the previous night.

“After finding you so accidentally and returning with your aid, on the little elevator, I threw myself back into the original pose on the big couch.  It was just in time, for Warren returned.  His cook came in shortly afterward.  I imagine that he allows no one in that apartment, ordinarily, when he is not there himself.  But what, sir, do you think I discovered upon the shoulder of his coat?”

Shirley shook his head.  “A beautiful crimson hair,” he asked gravely, “from the sun-kissed forehead of the delectable Pinkie?  Or was it white, from the tail of the snowy charger which tradition informs us always lurks in the vicinity of auburn-haired enchantresses?”

“Nothing so romantic.  Just cobwebs!  He saw me looking at them, and brushed them off very quickly.”

“The man thinks he is a wine bottle of rare vintage!” observed Shirley.  But the jest was only in his words.  He looked at her seriously and then rapt in thought, closed his eyes the better to aid his mental calculation.  “He got off at the second floor—­He wore no overcoat—­A black silk handkerchief—­cobwebs—­and that garage on the other street, through the block!  Miss Helene, you are a splendid ally!”

“Won’t you tell me what you mean about the garage?  Who were those men who attacked you?  What happened since I deserted you?”

But Shirley provokingly shook his head, as he drew out his watch.

“It is half-past two.  I must hurry down to East Twenty-fifth Street and the East River, at the yacht club mooring, before three.  Tomorrow I will give you my version in some quiet restaurant, far from the gadding crowd of the White Light district.”

He rose, drawing back his chair; they walked to the elevator together.  The clerk beckoned politely.

“A gent named Mr. Warren telephoned to ask if you were home yet, Miss Marigold.  I told him not yet.  Was that wrong?”

“It was very kind of you.  Thank you so much,” and Helene’s smile was the cause of an uneasy flutter in the breast of the blase clerk.  “Good-night.”

“That’s a lucky guy, at that, Jimmie,” confided the clerk to the bell-boy.  “She is some beauty show, ain’t she?  And she’s on the right track, too.”

“Yep, but she’s too polite to be a great actress or a star.  Her temper’ment ain’t mean enough!” responded this Solomon in brass buttons.  “I hopes we gits invited to the wedding!”