“’While ago you asked me why I wanted to meet you here. Well, son, my chief reason was because I knew Mary Regan was going to be here—and because I thought, on seeing her, you’d wade right into the situation.”

“See here, George, what do you know?” Clifford cried sharply.

“Mighty little that’s definite,—and telling you that would be giving people away, and that’s against my principles,—and, besides, the little I know might only be misleading. But, son,”—the old man’s voice was grave,—“if you’re at all interested in that girl, you sure ought to be busy. And that’s all I can say.”

Abruptly Clifford stood up. “Thanks, Uncle George,—good-bye—” And he was gone.

[20]

CHAPTER III PETER LOVEMAN

Clifford’s first business was to make up for the opportunity he had just let slip, and find Mary Regan. At once he decided that his best source of information was her brother, “Slant-Face,” once a pickpocket of amazing skill, now the manager of a little motion-picture house. He turned uptown to Slant-Face’s theater.

Clifford’s

On the way he was feverishly alive with questions. Clifford’s thoughts had really not been off Mary Regan from the moment he had seen her come down the stairway; and now Uncle George’s vague warning—he knew Uncle George would not have spoken even so indefinitely unless there existed a very real situation—banished all else from his mind. Why hadn’t Mary Regan sent him word? What was behind her return in such a manner? What decision had she come to in regard to herself during these months? What decision in regard to him?

And this danger that Uncle George had hinted at—did it rise chiefly from the plans and influence of other persons? And who might these other persons be? And what might be the danger? Or might the danger rise partly out of the complexities, the contradictions, of her own nature?—that nature which had[21] always so baffled and eluded him. But the doubt which lay behind this last question seemed disloyal, and he forcibly drove it from his mind. Mary Regan, he emphatically told himself, was the woman he had believed her to be! She could explain everything. Whatever might be wrong was due to the unknown other persons.

[21]

Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; 

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