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wondrous vigor of a full womanhood was hers--errant, ill-balanced, romantic, but exquisite, "but
you might as well not cross that bridge until you come to it," he continued. "I myself have been
thinking that we had better not go on with this for the present. That letter ought to have been
enough to stop us for the time."
He came over to where she stood by the dressing-table, adjusting her hair.
"You're such a pretty minx," he said. He slipped his arm about her and kissed her pretty mouth.
"Nothing sweeter than you this side of Paradise," he whispered in her ear.
While this was enacting, Butler and the extra detective had stepped out of sight, to one side of
the front door of the house, while Alderson, taking the lead, rang the bell. A negro servant
appeared.
"Is Mrs. Davis in?" he asked, genially, using the name of the woman in control. "I'd like to see
her."
"Just come in," said the maid, unsuspectingly, and indicated a reception-room on the right.
Alderson took off his soft, wide-brimmed hat and entered. When the maid went up-stairs he
immediately returned to the door and let in Butler and two detectives. The four stepped into the
reception-room unseen. In a few moments the "madam" as the current word characterized this
type of woman, appeared. She was tall, fair, rugged, and not at all unpleasant to look upon. She
had light-blue eyes and a genial smile. Long contact with the police and the brutalities of sex in
her early life had made her wary, a little afraid of how the world would use her. This particular
method of making a living being illicit, and she having no other practical knowledge at her
command, she was as anxious to get along peacefully with the police and the public generally
as any struggling tradesman in any walk of life might have been. She had on a loose, blue-
flowered peignoir, or dressing-gown, open at the front, tied with blue ribbons and showing a little
of her expensive underwear beneath. A large opal ring graced her left middle finger, and
turquoises of vivid blue were pendent from her ears. She wore yellow silk slippers with bronze
buckles; and altogether her appearance was not out of keeping with the character of the
reception-room itself, which was a composite of gold-flowered wall-paper, blue and cream-
colored Brussels carpet, heavily gold-framed engravings of reclining nudes, and a gilt-framed
pier-glass, which rose from the floor to the ceiling. Needless to say, Butler was shocked to the
soul of him by this suggestive atmosphere which was supposed to include his daughter in its
destructive reaches.
Alderson motioned one of his detectives to get behind the woman-- between her and the
door--which he did.
"Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Davis," he said, "but we are looking for a couple who are in your
house here. We're after a runaway girl. We don't want to make any disturbance--merely to get
her and take her away." Mrs. Davis paled and opened her mouth. "Now don't make any noise or
try to scream, or we'll have to stop you. My men are all around the house. Nobody can get out.
Do you know anybody by the name of Cowperwood?"
Mrs. Davis, fortunately from one point of view, was not of a particularly nervous nor yet
contentious type. She was more or less philosophic. She was not in touch with the police here
in Philadelphia, hence subject to exposure. What good would it do to cry out? she thought. The
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