"In that case," he answered her complaint, "let's leave. We can go to some other place."
"I've a very pretty little apartment on the Drive," she suggested demurely.
In the shadowy depths of the taxi tonneau a few moments later, she made herself comfortable against his shoulder. It was long after midnight. Save for machines bound on errands similar to theirs, the streets were deserted. The car sped westward toward the river. Sophie broke a long silence by murmuring, "You write the most wonderful letters, Rodrigo. I've saved them all. Though I don't suppose you mean a word you say in them."
Rodrigo laughed contentedly. Close to him thus, Sophie was again stirring his senses.
"Do you love me, Rodrigo—more than you ever did in London?" she asked suddenly.
"You are lovelier than you ever were in London, Sophie," he quibbled. "You are the loveliest girl I have ever known." But the image of Elise Van Zile obtruded itself and rather spoiled this bit of flattery.
The cab drew up to the curb in front of a huge marble vault of an apartment house. He paid the driver, helped her out of the taxi, and then held open the massive outer door of the apartment house, which was unlocked. Inside the ornate hall, with its fresco work and potted palms, he made a half-hearted movement to bid her good-night, but she insisted that he come up to her apartment. In a chair behind the private telephone switchboard a thin negro youth slept peacefully, his woolly head resting in his arms in the space in front of the plugs. Sophie explained that he was also the night elevator boy, and Rodrigo walked over and started to arouse him. At almost the same instant the front door swung gently open, and a voice said sharply, "Stick 'em up!"
Sophie choked a scream. Rodrigo whirled around to face a thin barrel of cold steel. He slowly raised his hands aloft and looked beyond the revolver into a pair of ratty eyes showing above a somewhat soiled white handkerchief concealing nose and mouth. The man with the gun wore a dinner jacket and a much crumpled gray fedora. Rodrigo thought he recognized him as one of the sinister-looking young men who had been eyeing Sophie's jewels in the night club. He heard faintly the purring of an automobile at the curb outside. No doubt the fellow's accomplice was waiting there. Rodrigo's eyes shifted rapidly around for a possible solution of his uncomfortable situation. He stealthily lowered his hands.
"Stick 'em up and keep 'em there!" snarled the intruder more sharply than before. Behind the telephone switchboard there was a sudden commotion. The burglar's words had aroused the sleeping negro. The latter took one horrified look, his face turned ashen, and he dropped abruptly and clumsily at full length on the floor out of range of the pistol. The stick-up man's head made the mistake of jerking for a flash toward this unexpected noise. Seizing his chance, Rodrigo leaped at the bandit with all his force, sent him reeling to the floor, and grabbed at the gun. The weapon bounded crazily to the marble-inlaid floor. Both men dived for the gun at once, Rodrigo ahead by the fraction of a second. He sprang to his feet, followed by his assailant. But before Rodrigo could get a commanding hold upon the trigger, the fellow had bounded out of the open door. A roaring motor, a sharp grinding of gears, and the car sped away. Rodrigo bare-headed, upon the sidewalk, deemed it wise to withhold his shot.
Sophie was white and trembling as if with a chill when he came back to her. The negro elevator boy was standing beside his switchboard like a man who has seen ghosts.