ch rogues possible. But supposing Cleigh had wished
really to quiz Jane? To find out something about these seven years, lean
and hard, with stretches of idleness and stretches of furious labour,
loneliness? Well, the father would learn that in all these seven years the
son had never faltered from the high level he had set for his conduct.
That was a stout staff to lean on--he had the right to look all men
squarely in the eye.

He had been educated to inherit millions; he had not been educated to
support himself by work in a world that specialized. He had in these seven
years been a jeweller's clerk, an auctioneer in a salesroom; he had
travelled from Baluchistan to Damascus with carpet caravans, but he had
never forged ahead financially. Generally the end of a job had been the
end of his resources. One fact the thought of which never failed to buck
him up--he had never traded on his father's name.

Then had come the war. He had returned to America, trained, and they had
assigned him to Russia. But that had not been without its reward--he had
met Jane.

In a New York bank, to his credit, was the sum of twenty thousand dollars,
at compound interest for seven years, ready to answer to the scratch of a
pen, but he had sworn he would never touch a dollar of it. Never before
had the thought of it risen so strongly to tempt him. His for the mere
scratch of a pen!

In the lobby he found the manager pacing nervously, while Ling Foo sat
patiently and inscrutably.

"Why do you wait?" inquired Dennison, irritably.

"The lady has some jade of mine," returned Ling Foo, placidly. "It was a
grave mistake."

"What was?"

"That you interfered this afternoon. The lady would be in her room at this
hour. The devil beads would not be casting a spell on us."

"Devil beads, eh?"

Ling Foo shrugged and ran his hands into his sleeves. Somewhere along the
banks of the Whangpoo or the Yang-tse would be the body of an unknown, but
Ling Foo's lips were locked quite as securely as the dead man's. Devil
beads they were.

"When did the man upstairs leave the beads with you?"

"Last night."

"For what reason?"

"He will tell you. It is none of my affair now." And that was all Dennison
could dig out of Ling Foo.

Jane Norman did not return at one o'clock; in fact, she never returned to
the Astor House. Dennison waited until three; then he went back to the
Palace, and Ling Foo to his shop and oblivion.

Dennison decided that he did n