“If you’d like to carry a little more I’ll let you have the money, Colonel,” offered his bitter enemy of the bony fist.

“Thanks, Mort,” returned the colonel gratefully.  “However, it is not necessary to display the fact to the entire gathering that I now have a pair of those deuces.”

Washer quickly reached over, snatched the colonel’s cards, replaced them with his own and went on dealing.

“I think we can handle it all among us, Johnny,” figured Courtney.

Shortly afterward, Loring, in high glee, separated Polly from a hilarious game of drop-the-handkerchief.

“Well, Polly, it’s all over!” he exulted.  “Johnny has been in to see his financial backers.  He has bought the Wobbles property and he has made his million dollars.”

“If Mr. Courtney hasn’t any fireworks he must telephone for some right away,” declared Polly in delight, and suddenly her eyes moistened.  “I’m as dippy about Johnny as his own mother!” she added.

“And in just the same way,” returned Loring, secretly glad to recognize that fact.  “When you can spare a little time for it, Polly, you might become dippy about me.”

“I am,” she acknowledged, putting her hand upon his arm affectionately.

“But you don’t want to marry me,” protested Loring, a trace of pain contracting his brows.  “I need you, Polly!”

“Please don’t, Ashley,” she begged.  “It’s a for-sure fact that I’m never going to forget poor Billy.  Don’t let that stop us being pals, though, please!”

“Certainly not,” agreed Loring, with as much cheerfulness as she could have wished, and burying deeply for the last time the hope that he had cherished.

“Look here, Loring,” charged Val Russel, striding over with Mrs. Follison; “you’ll kindly come into this game or give us back our Polly.”

“You’ll have to do without your Polly for a minute, children,” insisted that young woman.  “She is to be the bearer of glad tidings,” and giving her eyes another dab she hurried away to the house.

She found Constance alone in the library, instructing herself with an article on mushroom culture.

“I can read your palm without looking at it, pretty lady,” bubbled Polly.  “A large blond gentleman with handsome blue eyes and a million dollars in his pocket is about to offer you a proposal of marriage.”

Constance, suppressing a rising resentment, turned the leaf of her mushroom article.  The next page began a startling political series, which demanded of the public in violent headlines:  “Who Spends Your Money?” but Constance perused it carefully without noticing the difference.

“I’ve had my palm read before,” she presently observed.

“You don’t seem to be alive to the shock I’m giving you,” protested Polly.  “Really, girlie, I have some big news for you.  Johnny Gamble has finished the making of his million!”

“I wish that word million had never been invented!” suddenly flared Constance.  “I’m tired of hearing it.  The very thought of it makes me ill.”  How did Polly come to know it first?