ing his principal reason for declining;
he had too often "temporarily" assisted Mortimer at Desmond's and
Burbank's, when Mortimer, cleaned out and unable to draw against a
balance non-existent, had plucked him by the sleeve from the faro table
with the breathless request for a loan.

"I tell you I can wring Desmond dry to-night," repeated Mortimer
sullenly. "It isn't a case of 'want to,' either; it's a case of 'got
to.' That old pink-and-white rabbit, Belwether, got me into a game this
afternoon, and between him and Voucher and Alderdine I'm stripped clean
as a kennel bone."

But Plank shook his head, pretending to yawn; and Mortimer, glowering
and lingering, presently went off, his swollen hands thrust into his
trousers' pockets, his gross features dark with disgust; and presently
they heard the front door slam, and a rattling tattoo of horses' feet
on the asphalt; and Leila sprang up impatiently, and, passing Plank,
traversed the passage to the windows of the front room.

"He's taken the horses--the beast!" she said calmly, as Plank joined
her at the great windows and looked out into the night, where the round,
drooping, flower-like globes of the electric lamps spread a lake of
silver before the house.

It was rather rough on Leila. The Mortimers maintained one pair of
horses only; and the use given them at all hours resulted in endless
scenes, and an utter impossibility for Leila to retain the same coachman
and footman for more than a few weeks at a time.

"He won't come back; he'll keep Martin and the horses standing in front
of Delmonico's all night. You'd better call up the stables, Beverly."

So Plank called up a livery and arranged for transportation at one;
and Leila seated herself at a card-table and began to deal herself cold
decks, thoughtfully.

"That bit in 'Carmen,'" she said, "it always brings the shudder; it
never palls on me, never grows stale." She whipped the ominous spade
from the pack and held it out. "La Mort!" she exclaimed in mock tragedy,
yet there was another undertone ringing through it, sounding, too, in
her following laugh. "Draw!" she commanded, holding out the pack; and
Plank drew a diamond.

"Naturally," she nodded, shuffling the pack with her smooth, savant
fingers and laying them out as she repeated the formula: "Qui frappe?
Qui entre? Qui prend chaise? Qui parle? Oh, the deuce! it's always the
same! Tiens! je m'ennui!" There was a flash of her bare arm, a flutter,
and the c