“And you escorted me and never guessed!” Gloria taunted him.  “Really it seems too bad, after all of your week-end trips to Coloma, after all of your conferences with the estimable Mr. Swen Brodie!”

His prominent eyes bulged, written large with consternation.  For a moment he stood the picture of uncertainty, plucking at his lip.

“Gloria,” he said shortly, “despite all you have said I shall see you again.  To-morrow, when we have both rested, I’ll come to you.  Now, if you will pardon me, I’ll have a word with King.  Strictly business, you may be sure, King,” he concluded sarcastically.

“There’s to be no business between you and me,” King told him promptly.

“But there is.  If you’ve got two grains of common sense.  Look you, Loony Honeycutt is dead at last.  His secret is no longer his secret.  Swen Brodie knows something—­a whole lot——­”

“It strikes me,” frowned King, “that you know more of this than I gave you credit for.  Where do you come in?”

“I know—­nearly all that it is necessary to know!” His eyes flashed triumphantly.  “Think I’m the man to let the crowd of you lift a fortune right under my nose?  Here is my proposition, and you’ll thank your stars that I make it:  We are not friends, you and I, but that is no reason that we cannot be business associates until this trick is turned.  You and I enter into a pact right now, purely business, you understand.”  He was speaking more and more rapidly in the grip of a new emotion.  “Whatever we find we divide, fifty-fifty;——­”

King’s sudden laughter, no pleasant sound in Gratton’s ears, checked the rush of words.  To accept Gratton as a partner—­on a fifty-fifty split of the spoils!  Was the man crazy?

“I have been working with Brodie,” shouted Gratton.  “If I go on with him now, with him and the men with him, six or eight of them taking what he gives them either in money or in curses and orders—­if, I say, I chip in with him against you, what will the inevitable end be, I ask you?  Look at the odds——­”

“The inevitable end,” said King sternly, “will be that they’ll pick your bones and kick you out.”

“I demand to know what word Gaynor sent——­”

“Will you have him go, Mark?” said Gloria.  “He—­sickens me.”

King, unleashed by her words, took a quick step forward.

“Gratton,” he said, “you’d better go.”

Gratton, rising to fresh fury, shouted at him: 

“And leave you and her here?  Alone?  All night——­”

King bore down upon him and struck him across the mouth, hurling him back so that Gratton tripped and fell.  Gloria rose and stood watching, terrified and yet fascinated.  She saw Gratton crawl to his feet; his hand went out to the table to draw himself up; it found one of the heavy bronze book-ends; the fingers gripped it so that the tendons stood out like cords.  She could see the faces of both men, Gratton’s twitching and vindictive, King’s immobile, looking