swindlers hesitate at the thought of tackling him.

Through the occasionally opened doors of the restaurants came
the sounds of music and laughter, but Dave felt no desire to enter.

He was several blocks on his homeward way, and was passing the
corner of a side street quieter than the others, when he heard
a woman's stifled cry of alarm.

Halting, bringing his heels together with a click, and throwing
his shoulders back, Darrin stopped on the corner and looked down
the street.

Five or six doors away, close to a building, stood a young woman
of not more than twenty-two. Though she was strikingly pretty,
Dave did not note that fact in the first glance. He saw, however,
that she was well dressed in the latest spring garments, and that
her pose was one of retreat from the man who stood before her.

That the man had the external appearance of the gentleman was the \
first fact Darrin observed.

Then he heard the young woman's indignant utterance:

"You coward!"

"That is a taunt not often thrown at me," the young man laughed,
carelessly.

"Only a coward would attempt to win a woman's love by threats,"