ge suit."

Good God! Was there a price tag on him?

"Oh, the animal trainer!" They laughed again. Then Gloria came and they
called to her, demanding:

"_Who_ is he?"

"Oh," said Gloria carelessly, "he is an old friend of papa's and his
name is King."

They went in, two of the girls lingering a little behind the others.
Gloria and another. The other, bantering and yet curious, said:

"Georgia told me all about a Mr. King up in the mountains this spring.
And that it looked like love at first sight to her. 'Fess up, Glory, my
dear."

Gloria's laughter, unfettered, spontaneous, was of high amusement.

"Georgia said, just the same, that she'd bet on an elopement--"

King reddened and stirred uneasily. Gloria gasped.

"Georgia's crazy!" she said emphatically. "Why, the man is impossible!"

* * * * *

Five minutes later King went in, found his hat, and told Mrs. Gaynor
good-night. She was glad that he was going, and he knew it though she
made the obvious perfunctory remark. Gloria saw and came tripping across
the room.

"Not going so soon?"

"Yes," he said briefly. "Good-bye, Gloria."

"Good-night, you mean, don't you?"

"I mean good-bye," he said quietly.

Gratton thrust forward. King left abruptly, leaving them together,
conscious of the quick look of pleasure on the face of Gloria's mother.

_Chapter XI_

Always Gloria, yielding to the heady impulses of youth, was ready for
High Adventure. Therein lay the explanation of many things which Gloria
did.

Time went scurrying on. Mark King had returned to the Sierra; no word
came from him, and Gloria told herself with an exaggerated air of
indifference that she had just about forgotten him. Autumn came, that
finest of all seasons about San Francisco Bay, the ocean fogs were
thrust back, unveiling the clear sunny skies by day, the crystalline
glitter of stars by night. The city grew gayer as the season advanced;
dinners and dances and theatre-parties made life a gloriously joyful
affair for Gloria. She had hardly the time to ask herself: "Just where
am I going?" It was so much easier to laugh and cry lightly, in the
phrase of the day, "I am on my way!" She had drifted, drifted like one
in a canoe trailing her fingers idly in the clear water and never noting
when the little craft was caught by a steady, purposeful current. It was
speeding now; but she only laughed breathlessly and drank her fill of
the hour, and left