"Yes," she answered gravely, "I think that I could. I, of course, know nothing, but it happens that my friend is a great authority upon the markets. He is never wrong."

Blagden smiled indulgently. "Oh, I've heard of those fellows," he responded. "Don't think I'm rude, but there's no such thing in the world as a man who's never wrong on speculation. He simply doesn't exist."

"But you don't understand," she insisted. "He _really_ knows."

"Pure coincidence," he retorted lightly. "I've known of such cases. He might hit it three times, four times, a dozen times, but n.o.body can be consistently right. It's humanly impossible."

"It was over six months ago," she rejoined with conviction, "that he told me to make my first trade. At my cottage he has had installed tickers for all three of the markets. If he is there between ten and three, he keeps close watch of them. And every so often he will say, 'Would you like some pin money?' And always I win, and never lose."

"Well," said Blagden lightly, "we won't quarrel over it. If you say it's so, it's so. But why do you say that you 'desire more?' I should consider you a very fortunate lady. If I could win every time I gambled, I don't think I'd require anything else."

"Oh, yes, you would," she promptly answered. "If you were only allowed to play every week or two, and in a very limited way, and under the direction of another person, would that satisfy you? Of course not.

The point is here. I am only allowed to meddle with stocks as an amus.e.m.e.nt--a plaything. But I want to know how he does it. Then I should be satisfied, for I could make all the money I wished."

"But why so eager about money?" he queried. "You never used to be."

"In two years," she answered, "I have changed a great deal. I am older; I hope wiser. I know that youth fades, that life itself is brief. And before I die, I wish to realize a dream--a vision. I wish to have the finest pleasure yacht in the world and to voyage north, south, east, west, until I have seen all that there is to see upon this earth. Hence my desire for money."

"Now I understand," he replied. Then added, more lightly, "You say you 'want to know how he does it.' Does it appear to be a kind of magic?

Does he make his profits in the same way that a conjuror extracts rabbits from a hat?"

His levity nettled her. "You are provincial," she retorted sharply.

"You reason that because you have lost money in stocks, everyone must do so. Often it is foolish to believe too much; but sometimes one may believe too little."

He hastened to make amends. "I apologize," he said. "You are perfectly right. And I am really immensely interested in your story. You think, then, that he speculates with some sort of system?"

"I am sure of it," she answered with conviction, "and when I saw you here to-night, I suddenly remembered many things that you had told me about the market, and I wondered if you could not aid me now."

"If I may help," he a.s.sured her, "I am wholly at your service. Though I fear I am somewhat at a loss as to how or where to begin."

"And yet," she rejoined, "there is a starting-point. I am confident of it. Are you at liberty this evening?"

"Never more so," he answered.

"Then come with me," she said. "I have a taxi waiting." And Blagden, a.s.sisting her to put on her wraps, escorted her to the motor, which whirled them away from the city, mile after mile, until it finally stopped at a pretty cottage, far out in the country, isolated and half hidden in a miniature forest of trees, shrubs and flowers.

A trim maid answered her mistress's ring, then discreetly vanished.

"Now," she said, "I will show you what I mean," and leading the way to the study on the floor above, she turned the switch and flooded the room with mellow light. Blagden looked about him with interest. As she had told him, over against the wall stood the three tickers, side by side, and beyond them a desk and a telephone switchboard. In spite of himself, Blagden was impressed. There was an orderliness, an indefinable businesslike touch to the room and its contents which seemed to make it evident that its owner was a man of affairs.

"Well," she queried, "do you believe me now?"

"Oh, it's not a question of belief--" he began, but she suddenly exclaimed, "Wait a moment; I forgot," and hurriedly leaving the room, she returned almost instantly with a small memorandum book in her hand. "Now," she said, "look at this."

Blagden took the book and scanned the entries with care. Here was fifty Reading bought at ninety-three and sold at ninety-eight; and here one hundred bales of May cotton sold at eighteen, fifty-six, and bought in at seventeen, fifty-two. A little further on were ten thousand bushels of December wheat bought at a dollar, fifty-four and closed out at a dollar, fifty-seven. Sometimes the gains were large, sometimes small, but invariably, as she had claimed, each transaction showed a profit. Blagden gazed, fascinated.

"Now," she said, "isn't it wonderful?"

"Wonderful," he echoed. "It's more than that. It's a miracle. If I had met you six months ago, where would I be to-day? I'd be rolling in it; I'd be worth a million."

Her face was as covetous as his. "You've been in the market for years," she said. "Haven't you any way of finding out?"

"I don't know," he answered slowly. "Did you tell me in the cafe you had a clew?"

She hesitated. "It sounds rather ridiculous," she answered, "but do you think it's possible that the time of day can have anything to do with the strength or weakness of stocks?"

He looked disappointed. "Oh, I've heard that talk down town," he responded. "There are as many theories of speculation as there are speculators. Everyone agrees that there's manipulation--flagrant manipulation--though of course this is indignantly denied by everybody connected with the Exchange. But how this manipulation is managed, no two men agree. I've heard what you hint at, that the future course of stocks is determined by their artificial strength or weakness at certain hours of the day; two o'clock, some people think is the significant time. Personally I never believed in it at all. Why do you ask?"

"Because," she answered, "when he stands here by the tickers, he is continually looking at his watch. I am not supposed to know this; in fact, between ten and three I am excluded from this room; but I have devised means of watching, and that is the peculiarity I have noticed; that, and the jotting down in his notebook of memoranda which he apparently copies from the tape."

Blagden looked puzzled. "I should be very slow," he said, "to believe anything of the kind. And I should think you could manage this affair without my aid. Considering your relations with this man, considering your very obvious attractions, I should think the stage was all set for a modern version of Merlin and Vivien."

She smiled a trifle bitterly. "I will confess to you," she answered, "that the same thing occurred to me. In fact, I attempted it; and failed utterly. Compared with this--" she indicated the tickers--"I am the proverbial dust beneath his feet."

There was silence. At length Blagden spoke. "This fascinates me," he said. "At first, I wholly disbelieved your story; now I do believe it.

And upon one condition, I will devote my time, my energy, my best endeavor to the solving of this mystery. But the condition is important."

She regarded him curiously. "Name it," she said.

He rose from his seat, and stood looking at her appraisingly, a cold flame gleaming in his eyes. "It is this," he answered. "You liked me, I think, in the old days, but I was a poor man. I am a poor man to-day. But if we fathom this secret and gain the keys to Paradise, then let us make the building of your yacht a joint enterprise, and let us make the cruise--together."

She too had risen and now stood looking at him with a faint smile upon her lips. "Ours," she responded, "is a quite exceptional friendship.

You are a man and I am a woman, and yet we have the great advantage of thoroughly understanding one another. If you can grant me my desire, I will reciprocate. I accept your offer, and I wish you success."

CHAPTER VIII

The Adventure of Tubby Mills

At the street entrance to the cafe, Mills and Atherton came momentarily to a halt. "Well," observed the stout one, "we've got to hand it to Blagden. He's what you might describe as the original Tabasco. Yet it's no credit to him that he finds adventures; they just naturally come his way. He couldn't dodge 'em if he tried. See what's happened to him now; do you suppose either of us is going to run into anything like that?"

Atherton, still under the spell of Blagden's eloquence, was gazing forth upon the crowded thoroughfare, with its hurrying throngs of pedestrians, and its mult.i.tude of motors, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing incessantly under the glare and brilliance of the bright white lights.

"I think," he slowly answered, "that anything is possible. Blagden is right. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred live and die in a rut. It has to be so; that is life. But if the hundredth man is so situated that he may range the world at will, with eyes open and every sense alert, I believe, with Blagden, that he will find adventure awaiting him at every turn in the road. It's tremendously exhilarating. Here we take leave of each other; you go one way, I go the other, and what we may discover we haven't the shadow of an idea. I think we ought to thank Blagden for waking us up. I haven't felt so keen about living since I can remember."

"Blagden," said Mills, "is a queerer combination than most of us. He's an artistic sort of chap, with all the merits and defects of the artistic temperament. He always makes me think of an airship with its steering gear shot away; he goes like the very deuce, but you can't tell what his destination is, or at what moment a gust of wind may veer him from his course. Prince or pauper; he may become either; but he'll never be one of your commonplace mediocrities."

"You're right," Atherton agreed, "and to-night, at least, I envy him, though I imagine that in the end your plodder is perhaps the happier man of the two. He may get less out of life, but he risks less.

Thrills and ills are apt to go together."

His companion laughed. "Well, we've got to risk it," he answered.

"We're committed now to a life of adventure, whether we like it or not. I'm going to vary your phrase. 'Thrills for Mills' is going to be my motto. And we must make a start, Atherton; our time is short.

Good-night and good luck; we'll see each other Friday."

He raised his hand in farewell, and started leisurely down the street.

People by tens and hundreds and thousands surrounded him, enveloped him on every hand, yet of all the mult.i.tude he seemed to be the only wayfarer who was not hurried, preoccupied, intent upon his own individual affairs. "This," he concluded, "is too much like the middle of the stream; what I want is some quiet backwater, where there's a chance to pause and breathe."