"Rose?"
Lichtenstein's face became very cold and grim. "She's gone over to him
body and soul. Bubbles, and heart and mind. For weeks she's fooled us
with nonsense--stuff they've made up together. Worse, she's broken every
oath she ever swore. Our strength was secrecy. Well, your father knows
the name of every agent in our society. Oh, he's got it all out of her!
Everything!"
"Does he know that you are--"
"Yes, confound him, he does. And my life is about as safe in this city
as that of the average cat in the Italian quarter. My life isn't the
important thing. It's what I've got in my head--cold facts. See all this
stuff? That's what's in my head going down on paper for the first time.
It's to guide the man that takes my place--to help him over some of the
hard places--three hundred sheets of it already, and only a week since
I began."
"Rose!" exclaimed Bubbles.
"There was none better--none smarter--till she fell in love--_fell_ in
love!"
"Does he know I'm one of us, Mr. Lichtenstein?"
"Why, yes. I suppose she'll have given even the children away." Mr.
Lichtenstein's eye roamed over the suite of rich rooms with their
elaborate gambling-paraphernalia. "Not much doing," he smiled, "since
Rose went over. The tip's out that I'm wanted. Nobody drops in for a
quiet game. Bubbles, you tell people when you're a man and I'm gone,
that I wasn't only a gambler. Tell 'em I took money from people who had
plenty but wouldn't take the trouble to do right with it, and tell 'em I
used that money to do right--to help make dirty things clean."
He turned and regarded the face of the black marble clock on the
mantel-piece. As he looked the face of the clock was violently
shattered, and so, but on a lower level, was a pane of glass in the
window immediately opposite.
Abe Lichtenstein fell face down upon his unfinished manuscript.