“A photographer, you say?”

Mr. Sachs controlled himself.  “Do you mean to say you’ve not heard of Rentoul Smiles?...  Well, he’s called ‘Man’s photographer.’  He has never photographed a woman!  Won’t!  At least, wouldn’t!  But he’s going to photograph Isabel.  So you may guess that he considers Isabel some woman, eh?”

“And how will that help me?” inquired Edward Henry.

“Why!  I’ll take you up to Rent’s,” Mr. Sachs comforted him.  “It’s close by—­corner of Thirty-ninth and Five.”

“Tell me,” Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief, “she hasn’t got herself arrested yet, has she?”

“No.  And she won’t!”

“Why not?”

“The police have been put wise,” said Mr. Sachs.

“Put wise?”

“Yes. Put wise!”

“I see,” said Edward Henry.

But he did not see.  He only half saw.

“As a matter of fact,” said Mr. Sachs, “Isabel can’t get away with the goods unless she fixes the police to lock her up for a few hours.  And she’ll not succeed in that.  Her hundred days are up in London next Sunday.  So there’ll be no time for her to be arrested and bailed out either at Liverpool or Fishguard.  And that’s her only chance.  I’ve seen Isabel, and if you ask me my opinion she’s down and out.”

“Never mind!” said Edward Henry with glee.

“I guess what you’re after her for,” said Mr. Seven Sachs, with an air of deep knowledge.

“The deuce you do!”

“Yes, sir!  And let me tell you that dozens of ’em have been after her already.  But she wouldn’t!  Nothing would tempt her.”

“Never mind!” Edward Henry smiled.

II

When Edward Henry stood by the side of Mr. Sachs in a doorway half shielded by a portiere, and gazed unseen into the great studio of Mr. Rentoul Smiles, he comprehended that he was indeed under powerful protection in New York.  At the entrance on Fifth Avenue he and Sachs had passed through a small crowd of assorted men, chiefly young, whom Sachs had greeted in the mass with the smiling words, “Well, boys!” Other men were within.  Still another went up with them in the elevator, but no further.  They were reporters of the entire world’s press, to each of whom Isabel Joy had been specially “assigned.”  They were waiting; they would wait.

Mr. Rentoul Smiles having been warned by telephone of the visit of his beloved friend, Seven Sachs, Mr. Sachs and his English protege had been received at Smiles’s outer door by a clerk who knew exactly what to do with them, and did it.

“Is she here?” Mr. Sachs had murmured.

“Yep,” the clerk had negligently replied.