vidence of feeling in Smythe's speech.

"You speak as if you--"

"As if I knew!" He took the words out of her mouth. "I do."

"How do you know?"

"I tried it."

"And then?"

"Kicked out!" he replied with a grimace.

Marion laughed in spite of her burning eagerness to hear more.

"Not exactly kicked," Smythe explained. "But I'd rather have been. He
was as polite as--he's a gentleman, you see, so he knew how to do it
without using his hands or his feet."

"But why?" insisted Marion.

"Why did I try? Curiosity. Simple, elemental, irresponsible
curiosity."

She laughed again at his frank confession.

"No, I mean why did he kick you out, as you call it?"

"That's what I want to know. And I will know, too. I tell you, Miss
Gaylord, I admire the man immensely. His secretiveness only makes me
like him the more, probably because I myself am so garrulous. Most
persons, though, cannot tolerate a man who minds his own business.
Those who have no reason to hate Haig dislike him because he does not
ask them to like him. His affairs are his own. Did you notice that
scar?"

"Yes," answered Marion, scarcely above a whisper.

"Well, you can build any sort of romance you like around that. He has
had his romance or tragedy or something, you may be sure. But he's no
ordinary man, whatever he may be doing in Paradise Park. I have heard
that he's surrounded with books and pictures in his cottage. He's got
a Chinaman for a valet, and an Indian for his man Friday, and their
mouths are as tight as his. What's more, he must be all right in the
main things, for his foreman and cowboys stick to him through thick
and thin, and say nothing. I tell you, Miss Gaylord, I'd like to be a
friend of his, if only he gave a--"

"A damn, I believe they say," she prompted demurely.

"By Jove!" he said with enthusiasm. "You are a--"

She held up a warning finger.

"We're going to be friends, you know," she said. "And friends
understand each other--without words."

"Done!" he agreed, reaching for her hand, and shaking it.

"But this mystery," she said. "Doesn't anybody know--"

"You know as much as all of us. Of course," he added banteringly,
"there's no denying a woman, when she starts. He might tell you!"

The speech startled her, and she blushed.

"Now, that's sheer impudence!" she retorted.

But he continued to look at her with a curious expression. How much
had he guessed? In her confusion an impulse seized her. She leaned
s