lves and Pat, the
Stormy Petrel "hovered in the offing."

"Miss Moore asked me to find you," he said, "and ask you not to pay duty
for her things, as she thinks they'd better be sold for what they'll
fetch, so the Paris trades-people may be paid without worrying her
father."

"My gracious!" I exclaimed. "I never thought of that! She gave my
husband the bills. I took it for granted _they'd_ been paid, at least!"

"It seems not," said the S. M. "I suppose the trades-folk considered Mr.
Moore's name a good one. The French have an almost pathetic faith in
Americans." (I wondered how he knew that!) "But," he went on more
slowly, "I should have liked to suggest to Miss Moore, if I'd dared,
that she ought to stick to her car if she's going to keep a hotel. It
might be useful."

"Of course she must stick to it," Jack agreed, "and to her poor little
bits of finery. We'll see to all that, and the Paris people shan't
suffer. I'm afraid these custom-house chaps won't be keen on taking my
cheque, as they don't know me, but later will do, perhaps. They won't
make a fuss----"

"I can let you have a thousand dollars if it would be any good," said
the surprising Storm, taking from a breast pocket of his cheap
ready-made coat an ancient leather wallet, which looked as if it might
have belonged to Cain or Abel.

"Oh, then all your money _wasn't_ torpedoed!" I blurted out before I
knew that I was thinking aloud. Then I blushed furiously and wished that
the most top-heavy skyscraper in New York would fall on my head. But the
S. M. only laughed. "It was not," he replied. "When a man hasn't much he
sticks to what he's got a good deal closer than a brother. My savings
and I escaped together."

This made him seem to me even more mysterious than before, if possible.
A man travelling steerage, _plastered_ with bank-notes! But, I reminded
myself, he had a right to be Spartan if he liked: there was no crime in
that, and if he'd _stolen_ the money he wouldn't be likely to mention
its existence, even for the sake of as pretty a girl as Patricia Moore.

I hardly expected Jack to accept the loan, but he promptly did, and when
I saw how pleased, almost grateful, Peter Storm looked, a flash of
intuition made clear Jack's tactics. Just because the S. M. was what he
was, and wore what he wore, the dear boy treated him as man to man. I
_do_ think men are nice, don't you?... All the same, for a minute I came
near doing Mr. Storm an injustice. I sus