“As long as I’m satisfied, you are, aren’t you?” he said.

The clerk watched him with admiring eyes as he went out.  For the clerk, an odd thing in a man who sold clothing and therefore was prone to judge by clothes, caught a glimpse of the real man.

“Big mining man, most likely,” muttered the clerk.  “Don’t care for clothes and is rich enough to get by with whatever he wears.”  He looked vaguely envious.

King was busied for an hour or so, finding quarters for his cub, registering at the St. Francis, getting a shave and hair-cut.  A manicurist saw his hands and, smothering a giggle, pointed them out to the young fellow she was working on.

“Go after them,” he grinned.  “There’s a fortune for you in them.”

“Nothing doing,” she returned from her higher wisdom.  “He ain’t the kind that knows he’s got any hands unless he’s got a job for them to do.”

Later King telephoned to the Gaynor home.  A maid answered and informed him that Mr. Gaynor had not arrived yet, though he was expected this afternoon or in the morning; that both Mrs. and Miss Gaynor were out.  King hung up without leaving his name.

King sat in the lobby, musing on San Francisco.  As Gloria had said, it was a wilderness of its own sort.  Time was when it had appealed to him; that was in the younger collegiate days.  He wondered what had happened to his one-time proud evening regalia; how he had strutted in it, dances and dinners and theatre-parties!  But briefly and long, long ago.  It was like a half-forgotten former incarnation; or, rather, like the unfamiliar existence of some other man.  He grew restless over his paper and strolled into the bar.  There he was fortunate enough to stumble on a man he knew, an old mining engineer.  The two got off into a corner and talked.  Later they dined and went to the theatre together.

The next evening King got a taxi, called for his bear cub, stopped at a florist’s for an armful of early violets, and growing more eager and impatient at every block was off to the Gaynor home.

“Here you are, sir,” said the chauffeur, opening the door.

King fancied the man had made a mistake in the number.  The house was blazing with lights, upstairs and down; there was an unmistakable air of revelry about it; faintly the music of a new dance tune, violin and piccolo and piano, crept out into the night.  Above the music he could hear gay voices, muffled by door and window and wall.

King was of a mind to go back to the hotel.  He had counted on the Gaynors alone, not on this sort of thing.  But also, most of all, he had counted on Gloria, and his hesitation was brief.  He jumped down and, leading his bear cub by its new chain, went up the steps.

A housemaid came to the door, opened it wide for him, saw the cub against his leg, and screamed.

“Why, what on earth is the matter, Frieda?” said some one.

It was Gloria passing through the front hallway with a worshipful youth.  Gloria came to the door, the youth at her heels, looking over her shoulder.