In the end Jack had to give up the idea of separating Bobo from the lovely Miriam. For one thing Jack needed Miriam and Mrs. Cleaver in his present business, and Bobo supplied his only excuse for going there. The ladies were not interested in the humble secretary for himself.

So he warned Bobo afresh, and prayed that the infatuated youth might not be led into any irrevocable step before he was able to tell him the whole truth about his inamorata.

Meanwhile one of those tremendous intimacies characteristic of the fluff of society sprang up between the four. Within a few days Bobo and Jack were all but living at Mrs. Cleaver's house. A hundredfold millionaire gets on fast socially. Jack was always included in Bobo's invitations as an understood thing. One witty lady was heard to call him the sugar that coated the pill.

Jack speculated endlessly on the real nature of the relations between Clara Cleaver and Miriam. It was given out that they were cousins, and on the surface they exhibited a formal affection towards each other. But that they did not love each other was very clear. Dislike the same as murder will out. Off her guard Mrs. Cleaver's manner towards Miriam was as to something she was obliged to put up with, and the younger woman in her more natural moments displayed more than a touch of arrogance towards her supposed hostess. Moreover, Mrs. Cleaver was clearly well-born and Miriam just as clearly was not. Not for a moment did Jack believe in the supposed blood relationship.

Jack liked Mrs. Cleaver a lot better than Miriam. The former might be light-headed, vain, luxury-loving, rather silly, but she had a kind heart. Jack could not conceive of her as being engaged in calculated villainy. Yet she must be in the game, too. She and Miriam worked together. The farther he explored this amazing game the greater became Jack's perplexity. The different elements were so incongruous.

"But if I go deep enough I must find the link that connects them all!" he told himself. "The decent little gentleman with the imperial; Barbarossa, the anarchist; Dave Anderson, the detective; Clara Cleaver, the well-born lady, and Miriam Culbreth, the adventuress!"

The relation between Jack and Miriam was a complicated one. As in the beginning, she made it clear that while she intended to marry the millionaire she was not averse to having the secretary make love to her. Jack's indifference piqued the spoiled beauty almost beyond bearing. She longed to bring him to her feet, and she hated him cordially, too, as he learned before he had been visiting Mrs. Cleaver's house many days.

It was the tea hour. Jack had come after Bobo, but found everybody out. They had left word for him to wait, so he drifted up to the library where they usually had tea, and picking up a book he dropped into a chair to read. At his left hand hung a portière dividing the library from the central hall, which ran up through the house.

After a little while Miriam and Bobo came up in the elevator. Evidently there had been a misunderstanding about Jack's arrival—possibly some other servant had admitted them, for Miriam said:

"We'll wait a while for him before we ring for tea."

They dropped into a cozy corner in the hall, a nook favored of couples. It was immediately on the other side of the curtain at Jack's hand and he could therefore hear every word spoken above a whisper. He was debating with himself whether or not the circumstances justified him in playing the eavesdropper, when he heard Miriam say:

"You've never told me how you and Jack met, and how you came to choose him for your secretary."

That decided Jack. He gave no sign of his presence.

Bobo replied: "Oh, I've known him a good while. When I worked in the sash factory down-town, he was there, too."

"What did you do there?"

"Bookkeeper."

"What did Jack do?"

"Oh he—he was a bookkeeper, too. There were two of us. And we were friends outside the office, too. Used to go round together nights. So when I came into my money—why it was natural for me to get Jack to help me to look after it."

"Not bad for Bobo," thought Jack. He pricked up his ears at the next words.

"I don't see how you put up with him!" said Miriam.

"Put up with him!" echoed Bobo. In his fancy Jack could see the blank look that overspread the honest fat face. "Why—why, what's the matter with Jack?"

"The way he runs you, I mean. One would think he was the millionaire, and you the hired secretary."

Bobo made queer, scared noises in his throat. It seemed to Jack that Miriam must suspect that she had hit the nail on the head, but apparently she did not, for her next words were in the same drawling, careless tone.

"He all but tells you how to answer when people speak to you."

"Oh!" said Bobo, somewhat relieved. "But Jack's clever, and I'm not."

"You're not as stupid as he likes to make out," suggested Miriam.

"Devil!" thought Jack.

"Make out!" said Bobo. "Jack doesn't make out anything. He's my friend."

"My poor Bobo!" she said with indulgent tenderness. "You're criminally good-natured! Of course he knows which side his bread is buttered on. He's not going to say anything openly. But friends! Oh, how blind you are!"

"Jack and I are friends," repeated Bobo. "Jack's on the square!"

She laughed delicately. Jack guessed that she patted Bobo's hand or something like that. "Oh, well, let's change the subject," she said in a tone that forced him to continue it.

"No," said Bobo, just as she had intended him to. "Tell me what you mean. Does he talk about me?"

"Oh, it isn't what he says," she said with seeming reluctance. "But it makes me mad! Always poking fun at you!"

"Liar!" thought Jack.

"Making fun of me!" said Bobo in hurt tones. "Behind my back! I didn't think it of him!"

"There, forget it," she said soothingly. "It doesn't make any difference to your real friends."

"What did he say about me?"

"I shan't tell you. I don't want to make trouble."

Jack grimly smiled to himself.

"But I don't see why you put up with it," she presently went on. "As it is, you daren't call your soul your own. He manages you like a child—you a grown man."

"What can I do?" said poor Bobo.

"Fire him!"

"So that's your game!" thought Jack. "It's foredoomed to failure, lady!"

"Oh, I can't do that!" said Bobo horrified.

"Why not? I guess you can manage your own affairs as well as other men, can't you? Get a lawyer to help you. Everybody would think more of you if you came right out and put Jack in his place. They talk about it, you know. It's unmanly to submit to the dictation of one who is really no more than your servant. Send him away, and see how much better you'll get along with people. He fixes it so that you always show to a disadvantage beside him. That hurts me, because I know what there is in you!"

"Oh, you siren!" thought Jack. In a way, he could not but admire her cleverness.

She went on: "Some day I suppose you'll want to marry." Jack could imagine how modestly she cast down the long lashes when she said this. "I say this for your own good. No woman, you know, would want to put herself in the position of being under the thumb of her husband's secretary."

All Bobo could find to say was: "I'm sorry you don't like him." Jack had to confess to himself that a better man than Bobo might well have been stumped by such a situation.

"Oh, it doesn't matter about me," she said, "but he is openly rude to me. You don't seem to care."

"I do! I do!" cried poor Bobo. "I'll put a stop to that. I'll speak to him!"

"Yes," she said with a kind of plaintive spitefulness, "tell him I told you, and then he'll act worse to me than ever. If you cared about me at all, you wouldn't keep him for another day."

"You just leave it to me, I'll fix it," said Bobo desperately.

"That's what you say every day, but I don't see any change."

"So this is an everyday affair!" thought Jack. "Poor Bobo!"

"It can't go on," she said gloomily. "I think too much of you as a friend to stand seeing another man run you. I'd rather give you up—as a friend. If I've got to put up with Jack Robinson, I don't want to see you any more."

The softest creature, pushed to the wall, shows fight. "I won't fire Jack," said Bobo sullenly. "You're just trying to run me the same way you say he is. If I've got to go, I'll go!"

"Good for Bobo!" thought Jack.

She quickly performed the undignified maneuver known as climbing down. "No, Bobo," she said meltingly. "You are right. I shouldn't have spoken that way. It is none of my business. But I can't bear to see you imposed on. It made me ............