ich there
were many figures. With a small gold pencil she was working out sums,
which, apparently, were solely for her own edification. She
communicated nothing to her mother, who covertly glanced over at her
from the fancy work she was engaged upon at the far side of the room.

The room was such as might be found in any of the better middle-class
houses in a western city. Its furnishing was a trifle ornate.
Comfortable chairs predominated, and their woodwork shone with an
extreme lustre, or were equally aggressive in their modern fictitious
Mission House style. The carpet and rugs were broadly floral and
bright. There was altogether a modernity about the character of it
which decidedly belonged to the gray-haired showiness of the wife of
John Carruthers. For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful
about Elvine's surroundings. The daughter would never have permitted
such a thing. It was only modern, extremely modern. That type of
modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful
consideration.

At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large
pocketbook which was lying in her lap. Her fine eyes were half
smiling, and a faint tinge of color deepened her perfect cheeks. She
sighed.

"We didn't do so badly at the races, Momma," she said, more for her own
satisfaction than her mother's information. "Guess I've got most all
of it in and--I'm satisfied."

"Maybe you are, my dear," came the ungracious response.

Her mother was bending over her work, nor did she trouble to raise her
eyes in her daughter's direction.

"That sounds as if somebody else wasn't."

Elvine raised a pair of beautifully rounded arms above her head and
rested the back of her neck upon her clasped hands.

The gray head was lifted sharply. A pair of brilliant black eyes shot
a disapproving glance across the room. Then the mother continued her
work, shaking her head emphatically.

"What's the use of a few dollars? He's going back to his ranch
to-morrow, and--nothing's happened."

There was something crude, almost brutal in the manner of it. There
was something which on a woman's lips might well have revolted any man.
But it was an attitude to which the daughter was used. Besides, it
saved her any qualms she might otherwise have had in pursuing her own
way under the shelter of her mother's roof.

"I really can't see what you've to complain of, Momma," Elvine laughed,
without any disp