Mary’s sister was as winsome and fair as she, but to Burke’s keen eyes she was a weaker girl. There was a suggestion of too much attention to dress, a self-consciousness tinged with self-appreciation.

When she was introduced to Bobbie he could feel instinctively an under-current of condescension, ever so slight, yet perceptible to the sensitive young fellow.

“You’re the first policeman I’ve ever met,” began Lorna, with a smile, “and I really don’t half believe you are one. I always think of them as swinging clubs and taking a handful of peanuts off a stand, as they walk past a corner cart. Really, I do.”

Burke reddened, but retorted, amiably enough.

“I don’t like peanuts, for they always remind me of the Zoo, and I never liked Zoos! But I plead guilty to swinging a club when occasion demands. You know even millionaires have their clubs, and so you can’t deny us the privilege, can you?”

Lorna laughed, and gracefully pushed back a stray curl with her pretty hand. Mary frowned a bit, but trusted that Bobbie had not noticed the lack of tact.

“I’ve seen policemen tugging at a horse’s head and getting nearly trampled to death to save some children in a runaway carriage. That was on Fifth Avenue yesterday, just when we quit work, Lorna.” She emphasized the word “work,” and Bobbie liked her the more for it. “And, last winter, I saw two of them taking people out on a fire-escape, wet, and covered with icicles, in a big fire over there on Manhattan Avenue. They didn’t look a bit romantic, Lorna, and they even had red faces and pug noses. But I think that’s a pleasanter memory than shoplifting from peanut stands.”

Lorna smiled winningly, however, and sat down, not without a decorative adjustment of her pretty silk dress. Bobbie forgave her, principally because she looked so much like Mary.

They chatted as young people will, while old Barton mumbled and studied over his drawings, occasionally adding a detail, and calculating on a pad as though he were working out some problem in algebra.

Lorna’s chief topic was the theater and dancing.

Mary endeavored to bring the conversation around to other things.

“I have to admit that I’m very green on theaters, Miss Barton,” said Bobbie to the younger sister. “I love serious plays, and these old-fashioned kind of comedies, which teach a fellow that there’s some happiness in life but, I don’t get the time to attend them. My station is down on the East Side, and I see so much tragedy and unhappiness that it has given me about all the real-life plays I could want, since I came to the police work.”

Lorna scoffed, and tossed her curls.

“Oh, I don’t like that stupid old stuff myself. I like the musical comedies that have dancing, and French dresses, and cleverness. I think all the serious plays nowadays are nothing but scandal a girl can’t go to see them without blushing and wishing she were at home.”

“I don’t agree with you, Lorna. There are some things in life that a girl should learn. An unpleasant play is likely to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but that bad taste may save her from thinking that evil can be honey-coated and harmless. Why, the show we saw the other night those costumes, those dances, and the songs! There was nothing left to imagine. They stop serious plays, and ministers preach sermons about them, while the musical comedies that some of the managers produce are a thousand times worse, for they teach only a bad lesson.”

As Lorna started to reply the bell rang and Mary went to the door.

Two young men were outside and, at Mary’s stiff invitation, they entered. Burke rose, politely.

“Why, how do you do, Mr. Baxter?” exclaimed Lorna, enthusiastically, as she extended one hand and arranged that disobedient lock of hair with the other. “Come right in, this is such a pleasant surprise.”

Baxter advanced, and introduced his companion.

“This is my friend, Reggie Craig, Miss Barton. We’re just on our way down to Dawley’s for a little supper and a dance afterward. You know they have some great tangoing there, and I know you like it.”

Lorna introduced Craig and Baxter to the others. As she came to Bobbie she said, “This is Mr. Burke. You wouldn’t believe it, but he is a ”

“Friend of father’s,” interrupted Mary, with a look which did not escape either Bobbie or Lorna. “Won’t you sit down, gentlemen?”

Burke was studying the two men with his usual rapidity of observation.

Baxter was tall, with dark, curly hair, carefully plastered straight back from a low, narrow forehead. His grooming was immaculate: his “extreme” cutaway coat showed a good physique, but the pallor of the face above it bespoke dissipation of the strength of that natural endowment. His shoes, embellished with pearl buttons set with rhinestones, were of the latest vogue, described in the man-who-saw column of the theater programmes. He looked, for all the world, like an advertisement for ready-tailored suitings.

His companion was slighter in build but equally fastidious in appearance. When he drew a handkerchief from his cuff Bobbie completed the survey and walked over toward old Barton, to look at the more interesting drawings.

“You girls must come along to Dawley’s, you simply must, you know,” began Baxter, still standing. “Of course, we’d be glad to have your father’s friend, if he likes dancing.”

“That’s very kind of you, but you know I’ve a lot to talk about with Mr. Barton,” answered Bobbie, quietly.

“May we go, father?” asked Lorna, impetuously.

“Well, I thought,” said the old gentleman, “I thought that you’d ”

“Father, I haven’t been to a dance or a supper since you were injured. You know that,” pouted Lorna.

“What do you want to do, Mary dear?” asked the old man, helplessly.

“It’s very kind of Mr. Baxter, but you know we have a guest.”

Mary quietly sat down, while Lorna’s temper flared.

“Well, I’m going anyway. I’m tired of working and worrying. I want to have pleasure and music and entertainment like thousands of other girls in New York. I owe it to myself. I don’t intend to sit around here and talk about tenement fires and silly old patents.”

Burke was embarrassed, but not so the visiting fashion plates. Baxter and Craig merely smiled at each other with studied nonchalance; they seemed used to such scenes, thought Bobbie.

Lorna flounced angrily from the room, while her father wiped his forehead with a trembling hand.

“Why, Lorna,” he expostulated weakly. But Lorna reappeared with a pretty evening wrap and her hat in her hand. She donned the hat, twisting it to a coquettish angle, and Baxter unctuously assisted her to place the wrap about her shoulders.

“Lorna, I forbid your going out at this time of the evening with two gentlemen we have never met before,” cried Mary.

But Lorna opened the door and wilfully left the room, followed by Craig. Baxter turned as he left, and smiled sarcastically.

“Good-night!” he remarked, with a significant accent on the last word.

Mary’s face was white, as she looked appealingly at Burke. He tried to comfort her in his quiet way.

“I wouldn’t worry, Miss Mary. I think they are nice young fellows, and you know young girls are the same the world over. I am sure they are all right, and will look after her you know, some people do think a whole lot of dancing and jolly company, and it is punishment for them to have to talk all the time on serious things. I don’t blame her, for I’m poor company and only a policeman, after all.”

John Barton looked disconsolately at the door which had slammed after the trio.

“You do think it’s all right, don’t you, Burke?”

“Why, certainly,” said Burke. He lied like a gentleman and a soldier.

Old Barton was ill at ease, although he endeavored to cover his anxiety with his usual optimism.

“We are too hard on the youngsters, I fear,” he began. “It’s true that Lorna has not had very much pleasure since I was injured. The poor child has had many sleepless nights of worry since then, as well. You know she has always been our baby, while my Mary here has been the little mother since my dear wife left us.”

Mary forced a smiling reply: “You dear daddy, don’t worry. I know Lorna’s fine qualities, and I wish we could entertain more for her than we do right in our little flat. That’s one of the causes of New York’s unnatural life. In the small towns and suburbs girls have porches and big parlors, while they live in a surrounding of trees and flowers. They have home music, jolly gatherings about their own pianos; we can’t afford even to rent a piano just now. So, there, daddy, be patient and forgive Lorna’s thoughtlessness.”

Barton’s face beamed again, as he caressed his daughter’s soft brown curls, when she leaned over his chair to kiss him.

“My blessed little Mary: you are as old as your mother as old as all motherhood, in your wisdom. I feel more foolishly a boy each day, as I realize the depth of your devotion and love.”

Burke’s eyes filled with tears, which he manfully wiped away with a sneaking little movement of his left hand, as he pretended to look out of the window toward the distant lights. A man whose tear-ducts have dried with adolescence is cursed with a shriveled soul for the rest of his life.

“Now, we mustn’t let our little worry make you feel badly, Mr. Burke. Do you know, I’ve been thinking about a little matter in which you are concerned? Why don’t you have your interests looked after in your home town?”

“My uncle? Well, I am afraid that’s a lost cause. I went to the family lawyer when I returned from my army service, and he charged me five dollars for advising me to let the matter go. He said that law was law, and that the whole matter had been ended, that I had no recourse. I think I’ll just stick to my work, and let my uncle get what pleasure he can out of his treatment of me.”

“That is a great mistake. If he was your family lawyer, it is very possible that your uncle anticipated your going to him. And some lawyers have elastic notions of what is possible depending upon the size of your fee. Now, I have a young friend down town. He is a patent lawyer, and I trust him. Why don’t you let him look into this matter. I have given him other cases before, through my connections with the Greshams. He proved honorable and energetic. Let me write you out a letter of introduction.”

“Perhaps you are right. I appreciate your advice and it will do no harm to let him try his best,” said Bobbie. “I’ll give him the facts and let him investigate matters.”

The old man wrote a note while Burke and Mary became better acquainted. Even in her attempt to speak gaily and happily, Bobbie could discern her worriment. As Barton finished his writing, handing the envelope to Burke, the younger man decided to take a little initiative of his own.

“It’s late, Mr. Barton. I have had a pleasant evening, and I hope I may have many more. But you know I promised Doctor MacFarland, the police surgeon, that I would go to bed early on the days when I was off duty. So I had better be getting back down town.”

They protested cordially, but Bobbie was soon out on the street, walking toward the Subway.

He did not take the train for his own neighborhood, however. Instead he boarded a local which stopped at Sixty-sixth Street, the heart of what is called the “New Tenderloin.”

In this district are dozens of dance halls, flashy restaurants and cafes chantantes. A block from the Subway exit was the well-known establishment called “Dawley’s.” This was the destination of Baxter and Craig, with Lorna Barton. Bobbie thought it well to take an observation of the social activities of these two young men.

He entered the big, glittering room, his coat and hat rudely jerked from his arms by a Greek check boy, at the doorway, without the useless formula of request.

The tables were arranged about the walls, leaving an open space in the center for dancing. Nearly every chair was filled, while the popping of corks and the clinking of glasses even so early in the evening testified to the popularity of Dawley’s.

“They seem to prefer this sort of thing to theaters,” thought Bobbie. “Anyway, this crowd is funnier than most comedies I’ve seen.”

He looked around him, after being led to a corner seat by the obsequious head waiter. There was a preponderance of fat old men and vacuous looking young girls of the type designated on Broadway as “chickens.” Here and there a slumming party was to be seen elderly women and ill-at-ease men, staring curiously at the diners and dancers; young married couples who seemed to be enjoying their self-thrilled deviltry and new-found freedom. An orchestra of negro musicians were rattling away on banjos, mandolins, and singing obligatos in deep-voiced improvisations. The drummer and the cymbalist were the busiest of all; their rattling, clanging, banging addition to the music gave it an irresistible rhythmic cadence. Even Burke felt the call of the dance, until he studied the evolutions of the merrymakers. Oddly assorted couples, some in elaborate evening dress, women in shoulderless, sleeveless, backless gowns, men in dinner-coats, girls in street clothes with yard-long feathers, youths in check suits, old men in staid business frock coats what a motley throng! All were busily engaged in the orgy of a bacchanalian dance in which couples reeled and writhed, cheek to cheek, feet intertwining, arms about shoulders. Instead of enjoying themselves the men seemed largely engaged in counting their steps, and watching their own feet whenever possible: the girls kept their eyes, for the most part, upon the mirrors which covered the walls, each watching her poises and swings, her hat, her curls, her lips, with obvious complacency.

Burke was nauseated, for instead of the old-time fun of a jolly dance, this seemed some weird, unnatural, bestial, ritualistic evolution.

“And they call this dancing?” he muttered. “But, I wonder where Miss Lorna is?”

He finally espied her, dancing with Baxter. The latter was swinging his arms and body in a snakey, serpentine one-step, as he glided down the floor, pushing other couples out of the way. Lorna, like the other girls, lost no opportunity to admire her own reflection in the mirrors.

Burke was tempted to rush forward and intercede, to pull her out of the arms of the repulsive Baxter. But he knew how foolish he would appear, and what would be the result of such an action.

As he looked the waiter approached for his order.

Burke took the menu, decorated with dancing figures which would have seemed more appropriate for some masquerade ball poster, for the Latin Quarter, and began to read the entrees.

As he looked down two men brushed past his table, and a sidelong glance gave him view of a face which made him quickly forget the choice of food.

It was Jimmie the Monk, flashily dressed, débonnaire as one to the manor born, talking with Craig, the companion of Baxter.

Burke held the menu card before his face. He was curious to hear the topic of their conversation. When he did so the words were clear and distinct, as Baxter and Jimmie sat down at a table behind him his heart bounded with horror.

“Who’s dis new skirt, Craig?”

“Oh, it’s a kid Baxter picked up in Monnarde’s candy store. It’s the best one he’s landed yet, but we nearly got in Dutch to-night when we went up to her flat to bring her out. Her old man and her sister were there with some nut, and they didn’t want her to go. But Baxter “lamped” her, and she fell for his eyes and sneaked out anyway. You better keep off, Jimmie, for you don’t look like a college boy and that’s the gag Baxter’s been giving her. She thinks she’s going to a dance at the Yale Club next week. It’s harder game than the last one, but we’ll get it fixed to-night. You better send word to Izzie to bring up his taxi in about an hour.”

“I’ll go now, Craig. Tell Baxter dat it’ll be fixed. Where’ll he take her?”

Craig replied in a low tone, which thwarted Burke’s attempt to eavesdrop.