Pauline was standing in the aisle, the porter stowing her baggage into her drawing room, when the men entered the car. She noted them with curiosity. There was nothing very sinister about them, but they seemed obviously out of place, but the next moment she had forgotten about them, and for the twentieth time, was reading her own story in the Cosmopolitan. For now, in the light of the magic it had wrought, she was bent on studying every word—to absorb the power of her own genius, so to speak—in order that "her publishers" should not be disappointed in the forthcoming novel.
When Pauline got off the train at Philadelphia she did not notice that one of the four men who had aroused her curiosity walked behind her as she left, or that he was joined by the three others in the taxicab which followed hers.
When she left the cab at one of the fashionable hotels, Wrentz alone followed her.
He was at Pauline's elbow when she registered. As she followed the bell boy through the lobby, he stepped to the desk, and, noting the number of Pauline's room—NO. 22—he signed his name under hers with a flourish.
"By the way," he said easily to the clerk, "is that pet room of' mine vacant—the one I had last year?"
The clerk smiled. "I'll see," he said. "I had forgotten it was your pet room. I can't remember everybody."
"Oh, I was just here for a few days," said Wrentz.
"I remember you."
"Yes, sir; 24 is yours," said the clerk. "Front."
Wrentz stood at the cigar counter to make a purchase. He did not wish to follow Pauline so closely that she might know he had taken the room next to hers.