The Closing Net. Henry Cottrell Rowland

he growled. That's the name she goes by now."

      "She looks it," I whispered, wondering what he would say if he was to know that she was the woman who had shoved the gun into my hand while she hissed into my ear to shoot him dead a couple of weeks before.

      Léontine was wearing a pale green chiffon gown and her black hair was drawn down under a gold band set with emeralds. Her neck and shoulders glowed like old ivory. Edith and Miss Dalghren were stealing sidelong glances at her. Then the latter turned to me, and her blue eyes held a sort of inquiry which made me wonder if she had noticed Léontine's expression when she first looked into our box.

      Presently the curtain rose and the stage took everybody's attention—that is, everybody's but mine. I was doing some mighty hard thinking, you can bet.

      Just before the curtain fell Léontine and Kharkoff left the box. Edith turned to me.

      "Did you ever see so wonderful a creature?" she asked.

      "Did you?" said Miss Dalghren.

      "She's rather too exotic for my taste," I answered.

      "Do you know who she is?" asked the girl.

      ​"They call her 'the Devil's wife'!" said John. "Let's go out and see if she's in the promenade."

      So we got up and went out. As we left the box Kharkoff and Léontine passed, dressed for the street. I was talking to Miss Dalghren and Léontine's eyes avoided mine but rested for a moment intently on the girl. Miss Dalghren gave a little shiver.

      "She's rather terrible, I think," said she. "Did you see the look she gave me? It was not agreeable. I wonder why?"

      "Jealousy, perhaps," said John.

      "Of what? " asked Miss Dalghren, quickly.

      "I fancy," said John, "that for all of her dark beauty the Night is always a bit jealous of the Morning; also, your pearls are finer than hers."

      Miss Dalghren shrugged her handsome shoulders, but did not seem pleased. We started to walk through the press, talking of the music and the people, and presently returned to the box.

      When the show was over and we went out into the crush a woman attendant brushed past me and slipped a piece of paper into my hand. I guessed what it was and shoved it into my pocket, fiercely angry for the second that Léontine should have taken a chance like that. But the attendant had glanced at the lapel of my coat, and I saw that Léontine had probably noticed John's decoration and told the woman to give the note to the one of us who did not wear the red ribbon. John had been decorated for some silly thing or other; assisting at the unveiling of a statue, I believe.

      We went for supper, then home. As soon as I ​was alone in the pretty chintz bedroom where Edith had put me I took the note from my pocket and read:

      "How does it happen? How, how, how? Oh, my dear, are you your own man? Meet me in the rose garden at Bagatelle to-morrow morning at 11. Don't dare to fail me.L."

      Let me tell you, my friend, that I was not pleased with this note. Léontine was not for me. She belonged to the Under-World—or at best the Half-World—and I had put all thought of her away from me with the criminal life which I had passed my word to give up. Whether she was an anarchiste, a spy, or one of Ivan's organised mob, I did not know, and had no wish to find out.

      At first I thought that I would send her a line to say that my past and everything included in it was blotted out. Mind you, I had known Léontine for only about five hours, and then, except for the few minutes when we were in John's house, in the company of a gay crowd of high-rolling thieves. So it seemed a little thick that she should bother me now when I had escaped a life sentence by a miracle—or as Edith said, "the grace of God." I owed her nothing, but she owed me a lot and I thought that the best way would be to write and claim that she pay me the debt by leaving me alone.

      Thinking it over, however, I decided that this very payment was probably the only one that a woman like Léontine would refuse to meet, unless absolutely convinced that it was the only one which I would ever accept. Besides, I had a feeling that down underneath there was a lot of heart to Léontine and a little good sense. So I decided to meet her and ​make things plain, when I thought that I could count on her to do her part and make no trouble.

      When I came down the next morning I found John on the terrace reading the papers over his coffee. He looked up with a nod and a smile.

      We talked for a few minutes, then said John:

      "Frank, do you know anything about motors?"

      Yes," I answered. "I've fooled around cars a good deal." I didn't add that I had once made a tour of New England in a motor-car, working the different places we struck en route.

      "Good," says he, then went on to tell me how for some time past he had been considering a new motor-car proposition. A few days before he came to see me in the Santé he had decided to take it up, backing it with quite a lot of capital. The concern had rented a place on the Avenue de la Grande Armée, but was at a standstill for lack of funds.

      "You speak perfect French," says he, "and understand business methods over here. How would you like to take the managership of the Paris office?"

      "That would suit me to the ground," I answered.

      "Well, then," says he, "we'll go up there this afternoon and look things over. Have you anything to do before luncheon?"

      "Yes," said I. "There's one of my former pals I must see and give it out straight that I'm retiring from the graft business."

      John looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you're right," says he. "You don't anticipate any trouble, do you?"

      "No," I answered, "there's nothing to fear. Thieves often do just what I'm doing; get out of it ​in time. Fact is, most thieves chuck the game soon after middle age, if they're out of jail. I'll hand it out cold that I've quit, and make it plain that so far as the old gang is concerned I never knew it."

      This may sound queer, but as a matter of fact it's nearly as frequent for a crook to turn honest as it is for an honest person to turn crook.

      So out I went and hailed a motor-taxi and spun through the Bois to Bagatelle. I told my driver to let me out at the main gate on the side of the Bois, when I walked across to the rose garden. There was nobody in sight, so I strolled up to the little summer-house, looking over the gardens, and waited, for I was a bit ahead of time. The day was perfect; cloudless and the air soft and fragrant. Nobody was in the gardens, so far as I could see, and pretty soon I got tired of waiting and started to stroll down one of the narrow paths, banked on either side with perfumed laurel.

      It was at the first abrupt bend of the little path that I came face to face with Léontine. She was in a dark blue riding-habit with a little tricorne hat of Loden felt cocked a bit on her wavy black hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling, and as we came together she flung back her head and threw out both arms.

      "Frank!" she cried, as if I had been a long-lost lover, instead of a burglarising acquaintance of from nine until two. The next instant she was in my arms, or to put it more exactly, I was in hers, and her fresh face, with its faint odour of Houbigant, was crushed against mine.

      My friend, a man can't stand being fondled by as ​lovely a woman as Léontine and never lift a hand. This man couldn't, at that time, so I caught her in my arms and gave her a squeeze that made her gasp, big strong woman that she was. But she must have felt the lack of fire in it and as I loosed my grip she laid one of her gauntleted hands on my chest and pushed herself away, while her clear, curious eyes looked searchingly into mine.

      "Frank," she said in her rich voice, "are you really free? Your own man—and mine?"

      "I'm free all right," I answered, "but neither yours nor mine, my dear girl."

      "What do you mean?" she asked.

      "Come over here in the summer-house and I will tell you all about it," I answered.