he going's good."

Doremus, too shaken to reply, slunk off, and Spaulding after a glance
upward, left as silently.

CHAPTER XIII

I

Aileen had shrieked and fled. Ruyler stood in the room with the ruby in
his open hand. He saw that Helene was standing quite erect before him.
She had made no attempt to leave the room, nor did she appear to be
threatened with hysterics.

He groped until he found the electric button. The room, as Ruyler had
inferred, was Mrs. Thornton's winter boudoir, a gorgeous room of yellow
brocade and oriental stuffs.

"Will you sit down?" he asked.

Helene shook her head. She was very white and she looked as old as a
young actress who has been doing one night stands for three months.
Behind the drawn mask of her face there was her indestructible youth, but
so faint that it thought itself dead.

She looked at her hands, which she twisted together as if they were cold.

"Will you tell me the truth now?" asked Price.

"Don't you guess it?"

"When I came here to-night I believed that you were the victim of
blackmail. I was not watching you--I hope you will take my word for that.
We--I had a detective on the case--Spaulding merely wanted to nab the man
who was blackmailing you--"

"Do you still believe that?"

"I overheard your conversation with Aileen Lawton. I don't know what
to believe."

"I am a gambler. My father was a gambler. He kept a notorious place in
San Francisco. His name out here was James Garnett. My grandfather was a
gambler. He was even more spectacular--"

"I know all that. Don't mind."

"You knew it?" For the first time she looked at him, but she turned her
eyes away at once and stared at the oblong of dark framed by the
window. "Why--"

"Spaulding told me to-night only."

"Mother told me a week or so ago. She'd been recognized. Shortly after I
married, when she found out how the women played bridge and poker here,
she made me promise I'd never touch a card, never play any sort of
gambling game. I promised readily enough, and I thought nothing of her
insistence. Maman was old-fashioned in many ways--I mean the life we
lived in. Rouen was so different from this that I could understand how
many things would shock her. I never thought about it--but--it was about
six months ago--you were away for a week and I stayed with Polly Roberts
at the Fairmont. I knew of course that she played and that Aileen and a
lot of the others did, but I hadn't given the matter