"Thanks," she murmured, sinking into the soft nest he had made.

"Do you object to my cigar? Say so, if you do, and--"

"You'll go off to some other nook," she put in. "No, I like it."

His eye shone with keen appreciation: this girl was not only a

beauty--which is almost common nowadays--but witty, which is rare.

"Thanks! Would you like the paper? Don't hesitate if you would; I'm not

reading it; I never do. I keep it there so that I can put it over my

face if I feel like sleeping--which I generally do."

She declined the paper with a gesture of her white hand. "No, I'd

rather talk; which means that you are to talk and I'm to listen: will

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it exhaust you too much to tell me where the rest of the people are? I

left a party in the breakfast-room squabbling over the problem how to

kill time; but where are the others? My father, for instance?"

"He is in the library with Baron Wirsch, Mr. Griffenberg, and the other

financiers. They are doubtless engaged in some mystic rites connected

with the worship of the Golden Calf, rites in which the words 'shares,'

'stocks,' 'diamonds,' 'concessions,' appear at frequent intervals. I

suppose your father, having joined them, is a member of the

all-powerful sect of money-worshippers."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose so. And Mr. Orme--is he one of them?" she asked, with

elaborate indifference.

Howard smiled cynically.

"Stafford! No; all that he knows about money is the art of spending it;

and what he doesn't know about that isn't worth knowing. It slips

through his fingers like water through a sieve; and one of those

mysteries which burden my existence is, how he always manages to have

some for a friend up a tree."

"Is he so generous, then?" she asked, with a delicate yawn behind her

hand.

Howard nodded, and was silent for a moment, then he said musingly: "You've got on my favorite subject--Stafford--Miss Falconer. And I warn

you that if I go on I shall bore you."

"Well, I can get up and go away," she said, languidly. "He is a friend

of yours, I suppose? By the way, did you know that he stopped those

ridiculous horses last night and probably saved my life?"

"For goodness sake don't let him hear you say that, or even guess that

you think it," he said, with an affectation of alarm. "Stafford would

be inexpressibly annoyed. He hates a fuss even more than most

Englishmen, and would take it very unkindly if you didn't let a little

thing like that pass unnoticed. Oh, yes, I am his greatest friend. I

don't think"--slowly and contemplatively--"that there is anything he

wouldn't do for me or anything I wouldn't do for him--excepting get up

early--go out in the rain--Oh, it isn't true! I'm only bragging," he

broke off, with a groan. "I've done both and shall do them whenever he

wants me to. I'm a poor creature, Miss Falconer." "A martyr on the

altar of friendship," she said. "Mr. Orme must be very irresistible."




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