ss and color
and soft light.

A tall girl with black hair, a clear skin and intelligent eyes was
smiling at them both.

"Kenny," exclaimed Ann Marvin, "you Irish will-of-the-wisp! Where have
you been? Everybody's talking about you. Joan, dear, shake the snow
off your coat. You're beginning to melt."

Joan's eyes opened wide at the sound of her name. Ann laughed and
pinched her flushed cheek.

"My dear," she said drolly, "I know more than your name. Kenny sent me
a letter of measures, spiritual, mental and physical that would turn
Bertillon green with envy. If ever you default with all the foolish
hearts in New York I'll turn you over to the police. And you'll never
escape."

Joan clung to her with a smile and a sigh of relief that made them both
laugh.

"Ann," said Kenny in heartfelt gratitude, "you're a brick. I don't
wonder Frank Barrington's head over heels in love with you. You'll not
be mindin', Ann, dear, if I use your telephone?"

"Sure, no!" mimicked Ann broadly. "It's yonder in the den."

Kenny at the telephone called the Players' Club and with his lips set
for battle, asked for John Whitaker, whose methodical habits of
diversion for once in his life he blessed. When Whitaker's voice came,
brief and somewhat bored, he forgot to say: "Hello."

"Whitaker," he demanded, "where's Brian? You must know by now."

"Kenny! Is that you?"

"Yes."

"Where on earth have you been?"

"Away. Where's Brian?"

"Where's Brian?" Whitaker snorted. "He ought to be in a lunatic asylum
if you want my honest opinion. As to where he is, I told you before
and I'm telling you again, I'm pledged to secrecy. I've even destroyed
his address so I wouldn't be tempted--and my memory couldn't be worse.
I'd like to say right now, however, that he's more of an O'Neill than I
thought and I'm through with him."

"Phew!" whistled Kenny, much too astonished for battle. "What--what's
up, John?"

"What's up?" barked Whitaker, his voice tinged with acid. "Just this:
I handed the young fool a job that ten of the best newspaper men in New
York were pursuing and he turned me down cold to stay all winter in
some God-forsaken quarry where he's hacking up stone--"

"Hacking up stone!"

"Feels philanthropic. Grinds stone all day and at night helps a kid
he's known six months cram for a college exam. Damon and Pythias stuff
and I'm the goat. Pythias is seventeen by the way and wants to work
his way through college