"

The abruptness of this unsportsmanlike blow below the belt caused Mannie
to wince.

"How do I know where it is?" he protested. "As long as you haven't got
it, why do you care where it is?" He heard the door from the hall open
and, turning, saw Vera. He appealed to her. "Vera," he cried, "You'll
loan me two dollars? I stand to win sixty. I'll give you thirty."

Vera looked inquiringly at Mabel. "What is it, Mabel," she asked, "a
hand book?"

Mrs. Vance nodded guiltily.

"Mannie!" exclaimed Vera gently but reproachfully, "I told you I
wouldn't loan you any more money till you paid Mabel what you've
borrowed."

"How can I pay Mabel what I borrowed," demanded Mannie, "if I can't
borrow the money from you to pay her? Only two dollars, Vera!"

Vera nodded to Mabel.

Mabel, at the phone, called, "Two dollars on Pompadour--to--win--for
Mannie Day," and rang off.

"That makes thirty for you," exclaimed Mannie enthusiastically, "and
twenty I owe to Mabel, and that leaves me ten."

Mrs. Vance, no longer occupied in the whirlpool of speculation, for the
first time observed that Vera had changed her matronly robe of black
lace for a short white skirt and a white shirtwaist. She noted also that
there was a change in Vera's face and manner. She gave an impression of
nervous eagerness, of unrest. Her smile seemed more appealing, wistful,
girlish. She looked like a child of fourteen.

But Mabel was concerned more especially with the robe of virgin white.

For the month, which was July, the costume was appropriate, but, in the
opinion of Mabel, in no way suited to the priestess of the occult and
the mysterious.

"Why, Vera!" exclaimed Mrs. Vance, "whatever have you got on? Ain't you
going to receive visitors? There's ten dollars waiting in there now."

In sudden apprehension, Vera looked down at her spotless garments.

"Don't I look nice?" she begged.

"Of course you look nice, dearie," Mabel assured her, "but you don't
look like no fortune teller."

"If you want to know what you look like," said Mannie sternly, "you look
like one of the waiter girls at Childs's--that's what you look like."

"And your crown!" exclaimed Mabel, "and your kimono. Ain't you going to
wear your kimono?"

She hastened to the cabinet and produced the cloak of black velvet and
spangles, and the silver-gilt crown.

"No, I am not!" declared Vera. She wore the frightened look of a
mutinous child. "I--I look so--foolish in them!"

Such