it mean? Why had the detective been employed to follow Stella?
Instinctively she concluded that he must be engaged by Mrs. Warrington.

"I must accept Stella's invitation," she said to herself excitedly. "At
least, she should be put on her guard."

That evening, as she was looking over the newspapers, her eye caught
the item in the Wall Street edition:

RUBBER SYNDICATE DISSENSION

Break in Stock Follows Effort of Strong Minority to Oust Warrington
from Presidency

Then followed a brief account of the struggle of a powerful group of
directors to force Warrington, Braden, and the rest out, with a hint at
the scandal of which every one now was talking.

"I never yet knew a man who went in for that sort of thing that lasted
long in business," she observed. "This is my chance--a crowd riding for
a fall."

Constance chose a modest orchestra seat in preference to the place in a
box which Stella had reserved for her at the office, and, aside from
the purpose which was rapidly taking shape in her mind, she enjoyed the
play very much. Stella Larue, as the "Grass Widow," played her part
with a piquancy which Constance knew was not wholly a matter of book
knowledge.

As the curtain went down, the audience, its appetite for the risque
whetted, filed out on Broadway with its myriad lights and continuous
film of motion. Constance made her way around to Stella's dressing room.

She had scarcely been welcomed by Stella, whose cheeks beneath the
grease paint were now genuinely ablaze with excitement, when a man
entered. He was tall, spare, the type whose very bow is ingratiating
and whose "delighted, I assure you" is suave and compelling.

Alfred Warrington seemed to be on very good terms indeed with Stella as
she introduced him to Constance.

"You will join us, Mrs. Dunlap?" he asked, throwing an opera cloak over
Stella's shoulders. "Vera Charmant and Jack Braden are waiting for us
at the Little Montmartre."

As he mentioned the famous cabaret, Constance took a little tighter
grip on herself and decided to take the plunge and see the affair out,
although that sort of thing had very little attraction for her.

They were leaving the theater when she saw lurking in the crowd the
familiar figure of Drummond. She turned her head quickly and sank back
into the dark recesses of the limousine.

Should she tell them now about him?

She leaned over to Warrington. "I saw a man in the crowd just now who
seemed to be quite inter