re, is a bit of a
strain. I've got to get back to town and recuperate."

"I suppose you will rest your mind by writing another play?" gushed Mrs.
Renway.

Laurie shook his black head.

"Not a bit of it!" he asserted. "Don't even suggest such a thing before
Epstein, there. It sounds abhorrently like work."

Mrs. Renway's curiosity had a brief and losing struggle with her good
breeding.

"Then what _are_ you going to do?" she demanded coquettishly.

The young man pondered, as if considering the question for the first
time.

"Well," he said at last, "between you and me, I'm going in for
adventure. I intend to devote the next four months to discovering how
much excitement a worthy youth can crowd into his life if he makes a
business of going after the gay bird of adventure, and finding it, and
putting salt on its tail!"

The puzzled countenance of Mrs. Renway cleared.

"Oh, I see," she said brightly, "you're joking."

Laurie smiled and turned to greet a late guest who had come up behind
him. In the little group that had overheard him, three pairs of eyes met
in startled glances.

"Humph!" said Warren. "Hear that?"

"Nice prospect for us!" muttered Rodney Bangs.

Jacob Epstein looked harassed. A little later he joined the throng in
the main hall, and watched the showers of rice fall harmlessly from the
polished sides of Barbara's limousine as the bride and groom were
whirled away from the brilliant entrance of Devon House.

"She's gone," he said to Bangs as the two men turned and reentered the
still crowded yet suddenly empty house. And he added solemnly, "Believe
me, Bangs, on that job she left us you an' me 've got our hands full!"

CHAPTER II

RODNEY LOSES A BATTLE

Rodney Bangs, author of "The Black Pearl" and co-author of "The Man
Above," was annoyed. When Mr. Bangs was annoyed he usually betrayed the
fact, for his was an open nature.

He was betraying it now. His clear, red-brown eyes were clouded. The
healthy pink of his youthful cheeks had deepened to an unbecoming flush.
His wide, engaging grin, the grin of a friendly bulldog, was lacking,
and his lips were set tight. Even his burnished red pomadour added to
the general pugnaciousness of his appearance. Standing up at its most
aggressive angle, it seemed to challenge the world.

Sitting on a low chair in the dressing-room of the bachelor apartment he
and Laurence Devon occupied together, Rodney drew on a shoe and stamped
his foot do