e at a moderate pace up
Broadway just above Columbus Circle....

"Where to now, boss?" the chauffeur presently enquired.

P. Sybarite looked enquiringly at his charge. Since her rescue she had
neither moved nor spoken--had rested motionless in her corner of the
tonneau, eyes closed, body relaxed and listless. But now she roused;
unveiled the dear wonder of her eyes of brown; even mustered up the
ghost of a smile.

"Wherever you think best," she told him gently.

"The Plaza? You might be bothered there. We may be traced--we're sure
to. This only saves us for the day. To-morrow--reporters--all
that--perhaps. Perhaps not!... Don't you know somebody out of town to
whom you could go for the day? Once across the city line, we're safe
for a little."

She nodded: breathed an address in Westchester County....

Some time later P. Sybarite became sensible of an amazing fact. A hand
of his rested on the cushioned seat, and in it lay, now warm and
wonderfully soft and light, Marian's hand.

He stared incredulously until he had confirmed the substance of this
impression; looked up blinking; met the confident, straightforward,
and wistful regard of the girl; and blushed to his brows.

The car swept on and on, through the golden hush of that glorious
Sunday morning....

XXIII

PERCEVAL UNASHAMED

Toward ten of that same Sunday morning a touring car of majestic mien
drew up in front of a boarding-house in Thirty-eighth Street West.

From this alighted a little man of somewhat bedraggled appearance,
wearing a somewhat weather-beaten but heartfelt grin.

Ostentatiously (or so it seemed to one solitary and sour-mouthed
spectator, disturbed in his perusal of a comic supplement on the
brownstone stoop of the boarding-house) he shook hands with the
chauffeur, and, speaking guardedly, confirmed some private
understanding with him.

Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through
the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George
Bross with an apologetic smile and the request:

"If you've got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my
business."

Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George
produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and
helped himself.

They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation
escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk's mouth.

"Sa-ay!" he exploded--"looky here: where'