Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1916)

The Catspaw 69 eyes out at me. There was one old duffer, over near the door, who couldn't stop staring. I never saw anything like it!" ''That was Major Holbrook," laughed St. John. Then he added seriously: "He's going to be one of your victims. You've got to get after him right at the start. I'll give you a list of the ones you are to know, and then it's up to you to find the way." "That oughtn't to be hard," said Rokane smilingly. "I am pretty, am I not?" Kitt laughed at her arch inquiry. Then he-took her in his arms again. "You bet you are !" he ejaculated. "And, what's more, you've got brains. I don't know what I'd do without you — sometimes." Rokane looked smilingly into his blue eyes. All her vexation at seeing him with Dorothy Paget vanished for the moment. After all, she loved him, and she believed that she was clever enough to hold him. If not, there was always some other man who could be used to make him jealous, and jealousy is a sure cure for indifference. Now it was this Holbrook fellow, for instance, and there had been another man, whom she had not mentioned to Kitt. This second one had watched her from behind a screen of plants in the lobby. He had thought he was unseen, but Rokane'3 eyes were sharper than he supposed. There was something about him that made her think it best not to mention him to Kitt. And at that moment this individual was sitting in the smoking room of the Milville Club, thinking of the striking young woman he had seen enter the hotel that evening. What a fine-looking creature she was, he pondered, and what a dashing way she had of moving about. Why, there was the grace of a queen, the poise of an empress, and yet the carefree swing of a young girl, in the way she had crossed the lobby. What a wonderful wife she would make some man who was far up in society ! He had found out her name in the register, had found that she was Mrs. Bellairs, and he wondered whether she was a wife or a widow. Somewhere down in his heart he wished she were a widow. He had very little imagination, did Henry Bonwit, even though he had risen to the presidency of the Milville Bank ; yet he could easily picture this wonderful woman as his wife, and a leader in Milville society. "What's the matter, Bonwit?" put in a voice from a near-by easy-chair. "Thinking about stocks, or just dreaming?" Bonwit turned smilingly to his neighbor. "Not quite," he laughed. "Just thinking that it was time I started for home. There's a hot directors' meeting due tomorrow, and I shall have to get some sleep." "Hard luck," the other clubman sighed. "I was just going to ask you to sit in on a hand of bridge." "Sorry, but I really can't. I'll have to go over some figures before I turn in." He rose to his feet, still apologizing, and ambled to the coat room. He was thinking again of the wonder woman, and puzzling over how he would be able to make her acquaintance. For Bonwit was a man who made up his mind suddenly, found out at the start what he wanted, and then went after it tooth and nail ; and he believed now that he wanted the woman who had registered as Mrs. Bellairs more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life. True, he had only seen her once, but there was something about her that enchanted him from that first sight, and he was bent on a campaign for her affections. As he turned the corner, he passed Kitt St. John, who, if he had only known it, had just left Rokane's room