le smile, whose diffidence had denied him
the gift of language, gazed on her in rapt and happy stupefaction.

Meanwhile, Johnny Gamble found himself gazing as raptly at Constance
until the chaperon, in a brief interlude between reminiscences, caught
him at it. She reached over and touched him on the back of the hand
with the tip of one soft pink finger. Immediately she held that finger
to her right eye and closed her left one, and Johnny felt himself
blushing like a school-boy.

There was a trace of resentment in his embarrassment, he found. The
strain of being compelled to make a million dollars, before he could
tell this only desirable young woman in the world that he loved her,
was beginning to oppress him. He wanted to tell her now; but it was a
task beyond him to ask her to forfeit her own fortune until he could
replace it by another. Times were hard, he reflected.

He was now twelve hours behind his schedule and possessed of sixty
thousand dollars less than he should have. At nine o'clock to-morrow
morning that deficit would begin to pile up again at the rate of five
thousand dollars an hour. By comparison their auto seemed slow, and he
spoke to the driver about it. How well Constance Joy was in sympathy
with him and followed his thought, was shown by the fact that she
heartily agreed with him, though they were already exceeding the
Brooklyn speed limit.

"I not only want to be the chaperon but the dictator of this tour,"
declared Winnie when they alighted at the big playground. "I've never
been here before, and I don't want anybody to tell me anything I'm
going to see."

"It's your party," announced Johnny promptly. "Let's be plumb vulgar
about it." And he thrust a big roll of bills into her hands.

"You're a darling!" she exclaimed, her eyes glistening with delight.
"May I kiss him, girls?"

"Ask Johnny," laughed Polly, but Johnny had disappeared behind the
others of the party.

It took Winnie five minutes to chase him down, and she caught him, with
the assistance of Constance, in the thickest crowd and in the
best-lighted space on Surf Avenue, where Constance held him while he
received his reward.

"It's a new game," Johnny confessed, though blushing furiously. "I'll
be 'it' any time you say."

"Once is enough," asserted Winnie, entirely unruffled. "Your face is
scratchy. Come on, you folks; I'm going to buy you a dinner." And,
leading the way into the first likely-looking place, she ordered a
com