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“Yes. I have not seen her in many years. Where is she staying?”

“At the Tempe hotel. I do not know whether you intend to call, but I would suggest your not doing so to-day–that is, if you wish to see her and not merely leave your card–because she has an engagement this morning, and this afternoon she is going on an excursion.”

“Thank you for the generous information.” There was cool irony in the tone. “You are tolerably well posted as to Mrs. Detlor’s movements.”

“Oh, yes,” was the equally cool reply. “In this case I happen to know, because Mrs. Detlor sits for a picture at my studio this morning, and I am one of the party for the excursion.”

“Just so. Then will you please say nothing to Mrs. Detlor about having met me? I should prefer surprising her.”

“I’m afraid I can make no promise. The reason is not sufficient. Surprises, as you remarked about Punch and Judy, are amusing, but they may also be tragical.”

Telford flashed a dark, inquiring look at his companion, and then said: “Excuse me, I did not say that, though it was said. However, it is no matter. We meet at dinner, I I suppose, this evening. Till then!”

He raised his hat with a slight sweeping motion–a little mocking excess in the courtesy–and walked away.

As he went Hagar said after him between his teeth, “By Heaven, you are that man!”

These two hated each other at this moment, and they were men of might after their kind. The hatred of the better man was the greater. Not from a sense of personal wrong, but–

Three hours later Hagar was hard at work in his studio. Only those who knew him intimately could understand him in his present mood. His pale, brooding, yet masculine face was flushed, the blue of his eyes was almost black, his hair, usually in a Roman regularity about his strong brow, was disorderly. He did not know the passage of time. He had had no breakfast. He had read none of his letters–they lay in a little heap on his mantelpiece–he was sketching upon the canvas the scene which had possessed him for the past ten or eleven hours. An idea was being born, and it was giving him the distress of bringing forth. Paper after paper he had thrown away, but at last he had shaped the idea to please his severe critical instinct, and was now sketching in the expression of the girl’s face. His brain was hot, his face looked tired, but his hand was steady, accurate and cool–a shapely hand which the sun never browned, and he was a man who loved the sun.

He drew back at last. “Yes, that’s it,” he said. “It’s right, right. His face shall come in later. But the heart of the thing is there.”

The last sentence was spoken in a louder tone, so that some one behind him heard. It was Mrs. Detlor. She had, with the young girl who had sat at her feet the evening before, been shown into the outer room, had playfully parted the curtains between the rooms and entered. She stood for a moment looking at the sketch, fascinated, thrilled. Her yes filled with tears, then went dry and hot, as she said in a loud whisper, “Yes, the heart of the thing is there.”

Hagar turned on her quickly, astonished, eager, his face shining with a look superadded to his artistic excitement.

She put her finger to her lip, and nodded backward to the other room. He understood. “Yes, I know,” he said, “the light comedy manner.” He waved his hand toward the drawing. “But is it not in the right vein?”

“It is painfully, horribly true,” she said. She looked from him to the canvas, from the canvas to him, and then made a little pathetic gesture with her hands. “What a jest life is!”

“A game–a wonderful game,” he replied, “and a wicked one, when there is gambling with human hearts.”