"But your old partner," he added, with a smile, "is waiting for you; he has just received your card, and I should be only keeping you from him.

So glad to see you; you're looking so well.

Good-by! Good-by!" Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old impetuousness into his former partner's room.

Stacy, already deeply absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him, and Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck before the astonished and half-angry man looked up.

But when his eyes met the laughing gray ones of Barker above him he gently disengaged himself with a quick return of the caress, rose, shut the door of an inner office, and returning pushed Barker into an armchair in quite the old suppressive fashion of former days.