e sent his glance down the lordly
length of the room. "It's sorter funny to see you in this kind of place;
but you look it--you always DO look it!"

She laughed. "So do you--I was just thinking it!" Their eyes met. "I
suppose you must be awfully rich."

He laughed too, holding her eyes. "Oh, out of sight! The Consolidation
set me on my feet. I own pretty near the whole of Apex. I came down to
buy these tapestries for my private car."

The familiar accent of hyperbole exhilarated her. "I don't suppose I
could stop you if you really wanted them!"

"Nobody can stop me now if I want anything."

They were looking at each other with challenge and complicity in their
eyes. His voice, his look, all the loud confident vigorous things he
embodied and expressed, set her blood beating with curiosity. "I didn't
know you and Rolliver were friends," she said.

"Oh JIM--" his accent verged on the protective. "Old Jim's all right.
He's in Congress now. I've got to have somebody up in Washington." He
had thrust his hands in his pockets, and with his head thrown back and
his lips shaped to the familiar noiseless whistle, was looking slowly
and discerningly about him.

Presently his eyes reverted to her face. "So this is what I helped you
to get," he said. "I've always meant to run over some day and take a
look. What is it they call you--a Marquise?"

She paled a little, and then flushed again. "What made you do it?" she
broke out abruptly. "I've often wondered."

He laughed. "What--lend you a hand? Why, my business instinct, I
suppose. I saw you were in a tight place that time I ran across you in
Paris--and I hadn't any grudge against you. Fact is, I've never had
the time to nurse old scores, and if you neglect 'em they die off like
gold-fish." He was still composedly regarding her. "It's funny to think
of your having settled down to this kind of life; I hope you've got what
you wanted. This is a great place you live in."

"Yes; but I see a little too much of it. We live here most of the year."
She had meant to give him the illusion of success, but some underlying
community of instinct drew the confession from her lips.

"That so? Why on earth don't you cut it and come up to Paris?"

"Oh, Raymond's absorbed in the estates--and we haven't got the money.
This place eats it all up."

"Well, that sounds aristocratic; but ain't it rather out of date? When
the swells are hard-up nowadays they generally chip off an heirloom."
He