money to burn."

She hated him for that speech. His careless words and disdainful
attitude cut her sensitive nature to the quick. Evidently he despised
her.

Yet for all that, he did not neglect her interests. For two weeks after
her arrival and previous to her debut, she was the most written about
person in town. The papers were full of her. It was invaluable
advertising and she tried to show her appreciation in other ways,
inviting him to dinner, and sending him little presents. But still he
held aloof, letting her understand plainly that he knew her record and
was not to be hoodwinked or inveigled. The truth was, that women of her
class did not interest him. Indeed, they filled him with aversion, yet
he pitied rather than condemned them. "One never knows," he used to say
when the question came up with his men friends, "what kind of a life
they were up against, or to what temptations they were subjected. The
most virtuous woman alive could not swear exactly what she would do if
confronted with certain conditions." This was a pet theory of his, and
it made him more charitable than others.

Meantime, he was studying Laura at close range. He found that she was
weak rather than really vicious. There was much of the spoiled child in
her make-up. Her bringing up had been bad. In different environments
she might have been entirely different. There was much in her that
attracted him. He liked her merry disposition, her girlish
ingenuousness. Such a naive nature, he argued, could not be wholly
depraved. He frankly enjoyed her society, and it was not long before he
let down the barriers of his reserve. Laura was quick to notice the
change, and she would have belied her sex if it had not given her
pleasure. Madison interested her; he was refreshingly different from
all the men she had ever met. She wondered what his life was. At every
opportunity she encouraged him to speak of himself.

"Do you like this newspaper work?" she demanded, one day.

He shook his head.

"No; there is nothing in it," he answered. "When a big story breaks
loose--a strike or a murder, or a bank robbery--one likes the
excitement, but when things quiet down the dull routine palls on you. I
won't stay in it."

"Then what will you do?"

"Hike it up to the Northwest--and dig for gold," he replied.
Confidentially he went on: "I have the chance of a quarter interest in
a mine up there. If I strike luck, I'll be richer than Croesus."

"And then?" she