to be doubted whether he
knew they were there at all, in spite of their manifest ubiquity and
equally manifest pulchritude.

Tony saw him, too, as he loomed up, taller than the others, bearing
resistlessly down upon her. She waved a gay greeting and smiled her
welcome to him through the throng. Max Hempel, close behind, caught the
message, too, and recognized the face of the girl who smiled as the
original of the newspaper cut he had just been studying so assiduously.
Deliberately he dogged the young man's heels. He wanted to get a close-up
view of Laura LaRue's daughter. She was much prettier than the picture.
Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the
crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose
coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim
but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like
Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied
belonged to herself and none other.

Almost jealously Hempel watched the meeting between the girl and the
youth who up to now had been negligible enough, but suddenly emerged into
significance as the possible young galoot already mentally warned off the
premises by the stage manager.

"Dick! O Dick! I'm _so_ glad to see you," cried the girl, holding out
both hands to the new arrival. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining.
She looked quite as glad as she proclaimed.

As for the young man who had set down his suitcase and taken possession
of both the proffered hands, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was
in the seventh heaven of bliss wherever that may be. Next door to Fool's
Paradise, Max Hempel hoped somewhat vindictively.

"Just you wait, young man," he muttered to himself. "Bet you'll have to,
anyway. That glorious young thing isn't going to settle down to the
shallows of matrimony without trying the deep waters first, unless I'm
mightily mistaken. In the meantime we shall see what we shall see
to-night." And the man of power trudged away in the direction of a
taxicab, leaving youth alone with itself.

"Everybody is here," bubbled Tony. "At least, nearly everybody. Larry
went to a horrid old medical convention at Chicago, and can't be here for
the play; but he's coming to commencement. Of course, Granny isn't able
to travel and Aunt Margery couldn't come because the kiddies have been
measling, but Ted is here, and Uncle Phil--bless him! He brought the