A Remarkable Meeting

When Jack Gardner returned to the dining-room after his interview with Radnor, he was vaguely troubled, notwithstanding the fact that he was also highly amused. There were elements associated with the thing he had just done that might stir up unpleasant consequences. His inordinate love for a practical joke had led him into it willingly, and he had thought he saw in this affair the best and greatest joke he had ever attempted to perpetrate. But he began to understand that there was a tragic element to it which he could not deny to himself; and, when he was in the act of resuming his chair beside Beatrice, he was more than half-inclined, even then, to rush from the building in the pursuit of Burke Radnor, and to withdraw the whole story that he had given to the newspaper man.

When, a few moments later, Radnor's card was brought to Duncan, the sense of impending disaster was stronger than ever upon Gardner, and he watched the departure of the young millionaire with many misgivings, not one of which he could have defined in words. But he watched the doorway through which Duncan passed, and, during the interval that ensued, he was very palpably disturbed and uneasy. He had recognized the card, although he had been unable to see the name that was engraved upon it. He had not supposed that Radnor would so quickly pursue his investigation of the story, and it had not even remotely occurred to the young copper-king, that the newspaper man would dare to go so far as to seek an immediate interview with Duncan. Even had the man selected Beatrice, it would not have been quite so bad.