One calls it a chance visit because Percy had not been meaning to
borrow twenty dollars from Kirk that day at all. The man slated for the
loan was one Burrows, a kindly member of the Lambs Club. But fate and a
telegram from a manager removed Burrows to Chicago, while Percy was
actually circling preparatory to the swoop, and the only other man in
New York who seemed to Percy good for the necessary sum at that precise
moment was Kirk.
He flew to Kirk and found him with Ruth. Kirk's utter absence of any
enthusiasm at the sight of him, the reluctance with which he made
the introduction, the glumness with which he bore his share of the
three-cornered conversation--all these things convinced Percy that
this was no ordinary visitor.
Many years of living by his wits had developed in Percy highly
sensitive powers of observation. Brief as his visit was, he came away
as certain that Kirk was in love with this girl, and the girl was in
love with Kirk, as he had ever been of anything in his life.
As he walked slowly down-town he was thinking hard. The subject
occupying his mind was the problem of how this thing was to be stopped.
Percy Shanklyn was a sleek, suave, unpleasant youth who had been
imported by a theatrical manager two years before to play the part of
an English dude in a new comedy. The comedy had been what its
enthusiastic backer had described in the newspaper advertisements as a
"rousing live-wire success.
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