by a steady, purposeful current.  It was speeding now; but she only laughed breathlessly and drank her fill of the hour, and left to others the thoughts which carve fine lines about brow and eyes.  She knew that her father was beset by some sort of financial troubles; for the first time in her life he had not come to her birthday-party, and her mother had explained, rather soberly, that it was because of a business crisis.  Gloria did not know that crises lasted so long.  Weeks and weeks had gone and still she knew from a look which her mother could not hide that the money troubles were still stalking her father, and coming so close that for the first time in history they cast a shadow from the top of the Sierra down into her mother’s heart in San Francisco.

Now Gratton became the man of the hour.  He had studied Gloria with infinite patience and he never displeased her.  “He understood her,” as she comfortingly assured herself.  That meant, of course, that he gave in to her always; that tirelessly he exerted himself to please her.  At a time when there was much financial depression, Gratton’s obvious affluence was very agreeable to the pleasure-seeker.  He dressed well; he entertained with due respect for the most charming accessories; he took her to dance or theatre, or for a drive in the park or down the peninsula in a new, elegantly appointed limousine.  And about the same time fate had it that by two entirely unassociated trends of circumstance he should draw to the dregs of Gloria’s lively and romantic interest.  In the first place, he began to become a prominent figure in San Francisco.  His name was in the papers with names of “men who counted.”  And, of far greater import to Gloria, he became what she liked to consider a “Man of Mystery!”

For, weeks ago, Gloria had noted that regularly once a week Mr. Gratton dropped out of sight, to be gone for one or two days.  He was never to be seen Saturday; seldom Sunday; always any day from Monday to Friday night.  During week-ends he was “out of town.”  And, though there were countless opportunities for an off-hand explanation, Gratton never gave it.  Others than Gloria remarked the fact; a girl friend insinuatingly remarked:  “Better watch out for him, Glory, dear. Cherchez la femme, you know.”

Gloria never suspected any such condition of affairs; she was too sure of Gratton’s attentions.  But, being Gloria, she wondered.

One night she and Gratton were having a late supper together at the Palace.  They had been to the theatre and now, yielding to the demands of her young appetite, they sat before sandwiches and coffee.  Gloria saw the page as he came to the doorway; he stood, an envelope in his hand, looking up and down the room.  When at last his eyes rested on her and her companion, the boy came to the table.

“Telegram, Mr. Gratton.”

Gratton, more interested in what she was saying than in the yellow envelope, opened it carelessly.  But in a flash his attention was whipped away from her; she stopped in the middle of a sentence and knew that he had not noticed.  A quick spurt of blood flushed his dead-white skin; his eyes grew bright with excitement.  He read in a sweeping glance, and before his eyes came back to her they went hurriedly to his watch.