Meanwhile Captain Selwyn was sauntering along Fifth Avenue under the
leafless trees, scanning the houses of the rich and great across the
way; and these new houses of the rich and great stared back at him out
of a thousand casements as polished and expressionless as the monocles
of the mighty.

And, strolling at leisure in the pleasant winter weather, he came
presently to a street, stretching eastward in all the cold
impressiveness of very new limestone and plate-glass.

Could this be the street where his sister now lived?

As usual when perplexed he slowly raised his hand to his moustache; and
his pleasant gray eyes, still slightly blood-shot from the glare of the
tropics, narrowed as he inspected this unfamiliar house.

The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. Winter
sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, and the
burnished bronze foliations of grille and door.

It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria
swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from
limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted,
frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their
left arms, passed on the Park side.

But the nods of recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of motor
horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels and
polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of horses--a
gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at a woman's throat,