Maitland had no notion whatever of permitting anything of the sort to occur. He counted upon taking his enemy unawares, difficult as he believed such a feat would be, in the case of a professional cracksman.

Down the hallway he groped his way to the library door, his fingers at length encountering its panels; it was closed, doubtless secured upon the inside; the slightest movement of the handle was calculated to alarm the housebreaker. Maitland paused, deliberating another and better plan, having in mind a short passageway connecting library and smoking-room. In the library itself a heavy tapestry curtained its opening, while an equally heavy portiere took the place of a door at the other end. In the natural order of things a burglar would overlook this.

Inch by inch the young man edged into the smoking-room, the door to which providentially stood unclosed. Once within, it was but a moment's work to feel his way to the velvet folds and draw them aside, fortunately without rattling the brass rings from which the curtain depended. And then Maitland was in the passage, acutely on the alert, recognizing from the continued click of metal that his antagonist-to-be was still at his difficult task. Inch by inch--there was the tapestry!

Very gently the householder pushed it aside.

An insidious aroma of scorching varnish (the dark lantern) penetrated the passage while he stood on its threshold, feeling for the electric-light switch. Unhappily he missed this at the first cast, and--heard from within a quick, deep hiss of breath. Something had put the burglar on guard.

Another instant wasted, and it would be too late. The young man had to chance it. And he did, without further hesitation stepping boldly into the danger-zone, at the same time making one final, desperate pass at the spot where the switch should have been--and missing it. On the instant there came a click of a different caliber from those that had preceded it. A revolver had been cocked, somewhere there in the blank darkness.

Maitland knew enough not to move. In another respect the warning came too late; his fingers had found the switch at last, and automatically had turned it. The glare was blinding, momentarily; but the flash and report for which Maitland waited did not come. When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the suddenly altered conditions, he saw, directly before him and some six feet distant, a woman's slight figure, dark cloaked, resolute upon its two feet, head framed in veiling, features effectually disguised in a motor mask whose round, staring goggles shone blankly in the warm white light.

On her part, she seemed to recognize him instantaneously. On his.... It may as well be admitted that Maitland's wits were gone wool-gathering, temporarily at least: a state of mind not unpardonable when it is taken into consideration that he was called upon to grapple with and simultaneously to assimilate three momentous facts. For the first time in his life he found himself nose to nose with a revolver, and that one of able bodied and respect-compelling proportions. For the first time in his life, again, he was under necessity of dealing with a housebreaker. But most stupefying of all he found the fact that this housebreaker, this armed midnight marauder, was a woman! And so it was not altogether fearlessness that made him to all intents and purposes ignore the weapon; it is nothing to his credit for courage if his eyes struck past the black and deadly mouth of the revolver and looked only into the blank and expressionless eyes of the wind-mask; it was not lack of respect for his skin's integrity, but the sheer, tremendous wonder of it all, that rendered him oblivious to the eternity that lay the other side of a slender, trembling finger-tip.

And so he stared, agape, until presently the weapon wavered and was lowered and the woman's voice, touched with irony, brought him to his senses.

"Oh," she remarked coolly, "it's only you."

Thunderstruck, he was able no more than to parrot the pronoun: "_You--you_!"

"Were you expecting to meet any one else, here, to-night?" she inquired in suavest mockery.

He lifted his shoulders helplessly, and tried to school his tongue to coherence. "I confess.... Well, certainly I didn't count on finding you here, Miss Wentworth. And the black cloak, you know--"

"Reversible, of course: grey inside, as you see--Handsome Dan!" The girl laughed quietly, drawing aside an edge of the garment to reveal its inner face of silken grey and the fluted ruffles of the grey skirt underneath.

He nodded appreciation of the device, his mind now busy with speculations as to what he should do with the girl, now that he had caught her. At the same time he was vaguely vexed by her persistent repetition of the obsolescent nickname.

"Handsome Dan," he iterated all but mechanically. "Why do you call me that, please? Have we met before? I could swear, never before this night!"

"But you are altogether too modest," she laughed. "Not that it's a bad trait in the character of a professional.... But really! it seems a bit incredible that any one so widely advertised as Handsome Dan Anisty should feel surprise at being recognized. Why, your portrait and biography have commanded space in every yellow journal in America recently!"

And, dropping the revolver into a pocket in her cloak, "I was afraid you might be a servant--or even Maitland," she diverted the subject, with a nod.

"But--but if you recognized me as Anisty, back there by the ford, didn't you suspect I'd drop in on you--"

"Why, of course! Didn't _you_ all but tell me that you were coming here?"

"But--"

"I thought _perhaps_ I might get through before you came, Mr. Anisty; but I knew all the time that, even if you did manage to surprise me--er--on the job, you wouldn't call in the police." She laughed confidently, and--oddly enough--at the same time nervously. "You are certainly a very bold man, and as surely a very careless one, to run around the way you do without so much as troubling to grow a beard or a mustache, after your picture has been published broadcast."

Did he catch a gleam of admiration in the eyes behind the goggles?

"Now, if ever they get hold of _my_ portrait and print it.... Well!"

sighed the girl wickedly, lifting slim, bare fingers in affected concern to the mass of ruddy hair, "in that event I suppose I shall have to become a natural blonde!"

Her humor, her splendid fearlessness, the lightness of her tone, combined with the half-laughing, half-serious look that she swept up at him, to ease the tension of his emotions. For the first time since entering the room, he smiled; then in silence for a time regarded her steadfastly, thinking.

So he resembled this burglar, Anisty, strongly enough to be mistaken for him--eh? Plainly enough the girl believed him to be Anisty....

Well, and why not? Why shouldn't he be Anisty for the time being, if it suited his purpose so to masquerade?

It might possibly suit his purpose. He thought his position one uncommonly difficult. As Maitland, he had on his hands a female thief, a hardened character, a common malefactor (strange that he got so little relish of the terms!), caught red-handed; as Maitland, his duty was to hand her over to the law, to be dealt with as--what she was.

Yet, even while these considerations were urging themselves upon him, he knew his eyes appraised her with open admiration and interest. She stood before him, slight, delicate, pretty, appealing in her ingenuous candor; and at his mercy. How could he bring himself to deal with her as he might with--well, Anisty himself? She was a woman, he a gentleman.

As Anisty, however,--if he chose to assume that expert's identity for the nonce,--he would be placed at once on a plane of equality with the girl; from a fellow of her craft she could hardly refuse attentions. As Anisty, he would put himself in a position to earn her friendship, to gain--perhaps--her confidence, to learn something of her necessities, to aid and protect her from the consequences of her misdeeds; possibly--to sum up--to divert her footsteps to the paths of a calling less hazardous and more honorable.

Worthy ambition: to reform a burglar! Maitland regained something of his lost self-esteem, applauding himself for entertaining a motive so laudable. And he chose his course, for better or worse, in these few seconds. Thereby proving his incontestable title to the name and repute of Mad Maitland.

His face lightened; his manner changed; he assumed with avidity the role for which she had cast him and which he stood so ready to accept and act.

"Well and good," he conceded with an air. "I suppose I may as well own up----"

"Oh, I know _you_," she assured him, with a little, confident shake of her head. "There's no deceiving me. But," and her smile became rueful, "if only you'd waited ten minutes more! Of course I recognized you from the first--down there by the river; and knew very well what was your--lay; you gave yourself away completely by mentioning the distance from the river to the Manor. And I did so want to get ahead of you on this job! What a feather in one's cap to have forestalled Dan Anisty!... But hadn't you better be a little careful with those lights?

You seem to forget that there are servants in the house. Really, you know, I find you most romantically audacious, Mr. Anisty--quite in keeping with your reputation."

"You overwhelm me," he murmured. "Believe me, I have little conceit in my fame, such as it is." And, crossing to the windows, he loosed the heavy velvet hangings and let them fall together, drawing their edges close so that no ray of light might escape.

She watched him with interest. "You seem well acquainted here."

"Of course. Any man of imagination is at pains to study every house he enters. I have a map of the premises--house and grounds--here." He indicated his forehead with a long forefinger.

"Quite right, too--and worth one's while. If rumor is to be believed, you have ordinarily more than your labor for your pains. You have taught me something already.... Ah, well!" she sighed, "I suppose I may as well acknowledge my inferiority--as neophyte to hierophant. Master!"

She courtesied low. "I beg you proceed and let thy cheela profit through observation!" And a small white hand gestured significantly toward the collection of burglar's tools,--drills and chisels, skeleton keys, putty, and all,--neatly displayed upon the rug before the massive safe.

"You mean that you wish me to crack this safe for you?" he inquired, with inward consternation.

"Not for me. Disappointment I admit is mine; but not for the loss I sustain. In the presence of the master I am content to stand humbly to one side, as befits one of my lowly state in--in the ranks of our profession. I resign, I abdicate in your favor; claiming nothing by right of priority."

"You are too generous," he mumbled, confused by her thinly veiled ridicule.

"Not at all," she replied briskly. "I am entirely serious. My loss of to-day will prove my gain, tomorrow. I look for incalculable benefit through study of your methods. My own, I confess," with a contemptuous toss of her head toward the burglar's kit, "are clumsy, antiquated, out of date.... But then, I'm only an amateur."

"Oh, but a woman----" he began to apologize on her behalf.

"Oh, but a woman!" she rapped out smartly. "I wish you to understand that this woman, at least, is no mean----" And she hesitated.

"Thief?" he supplied crudely.

"Yes, thief! We're two of a feather, at that."

"True enough.... But you were first in the field; I fail to see why I should reap any reward for tardiness. The spoils must be yours."

It was a test: Maitland watched her keenly, fascinated by the subtlety of the game.

"But I refuse, Mr. Anisty--positively refuse to go to work while you stand aside and--and laugh."

Pride! He stared, openly amazed, at this bewilderingly feminine bundle of inconsistencies. With each facet of her character discovered to him, minute by minute, the study of her became to him the more engrossing.

He drew nearer, eyes speculative.