"I--well I--well, let it go at that."

"Secondly, with all your crimes and felonies, you have one decent trait left: you really would like to fall in love. And I suspect you'd even marry."

"There are grounds," said Gatewood guardedly, "for your suspicions. Et après?"

"Good. Then there's a way! I know--"

"Oh, don't tell me you 'know a girl,' or anything like that!" began Gatewood sullenly. "I've heard that before, and I won't meet her."

"I don't want you to; I don't know anybody. All I desire to say is this: I do know a way. The other day I noticed a sign on Fifth Avenue:

KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS

It was a most extraordinary sign; and having a little unemployed imagination I began to speculate on how Keen & Co. might operate, and I wondered a little, too, that, the conditions of life in this city could enable a firm to make a living by devoting itself exclusively to the business of hunting up missing people."

Kerns paused, partly to light a cigarette, partly for diplomatic reasons.

"What has all this to do with me?" inquired Gatewood curiously; and diplomacy scored one.

"Why not try Keen & Co.?"

"Try them? Why? I haven't lost anybody, have I?""You haven't, precisely _lost anybody_, but the fact remains that you can't _find somebody_," returned Kerns coolly. "Why not employ Keen & Co. to look for her?"

"Look for whom, in Heaven's name?"

"Your ideal."

"Look for--for my ideal! Kerns, you're crazy. How the mischief can anybody hunt for somebody who doesn't exist?"

"You _say_ that she _does_ exist."

"But I can't prove it, man."

"You don't have to; it's up to Keen & Co. to prove it. That's why you employ them."

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