CHAPTER X


MR. NORRIS VINE

Stella walked briskly down Fifth Avenue and turned into Broadway. Here
she took a car down town, and presented herself in the space of twenty
minutes or so before the offices of Mr. Norris Vine, at the top of a
great flight of stairs in a building near Madison Square. Vine himself
opened the door, and led her through the clerk's office into his own
small but luxurious apartment.

"You were just going out?" she asked.

"It is no matter," he answered. "I have at least half an hour that I can
spare."

He led her to his easy-chair, and seated himself in the chair before his
desk. The sunshine fell upon his thin, somewhat hard face, and she
looked at him thoughtfully.

"Are you getting older, Norris?" she asked, "or are things going the
wrong way with you just now?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"It is a very strenuous life this," he remarked. "One has to crush all
one's nervous instincts, and when one has succeeded in doing that, one