e carry himself in company, so ornamental and engaging was
he as a dinner guest, that he was soon in great demand. He possessed
accomplishments, too, that increased the respect of his masculine
acquaintances. For instance, he displayed a proficiency at golf quite
unusual in men of athletic training, and they argued that any man who
could do par whenever he felt like it must be either a professional or
a person of limitless leisure. And limitless leisure means limitless
funds.

Gray studiously maintained his air of financial mystery; he was in and
out of offices, always purposeful, always in a hurry, but always with
sufficient time to observe the strictest niceties of polite behavior.
It was a part of his plan to create an atmosphere of his own, to
emphasize his knack for quick, decisive, well-calculated action. The
money he received from Coverly enabled him to maintain the posture he
had assumed; he spent it with his usual prodigality, receiving little
direct benefit, but making each dollar look like four. Extravagance
with him was an art, money ran out of his pockets like water, but
although he was already in a position to borrow, he did not do so. He
merely marked time, deriving a grim amusement at the way his popularity
grew as his currency dwindled. It was a game, enjoyable so long as it
lasted. Egotistical he knew himself to be, but it was a conscious
fault; to tickle his own vanity filled him with the same satisfaction a
cat feels at having its back rubbed, and he excused himself by
reasoning that his deceit harmed nobody. Meanwhile, with feline
alertness he waited for a mouse to appear.

He was relieved one day to receive a telegram from Gus Briskow asking
him to meet Ma and Allie at the evening train and "get them a hotel."
He managed to secure a good suite at the Ajax, and it was with
genuinely pleasurable anticipation that he drove to the station.

Dismay smote him, however, at first sight of the new arrivals. Ma
Briskow resembled nothing so much as one of those hideous "crayon
enlargements" he had seen in farmhouses--atrocities of an art long
dead--for she was clad in an old-fashioned basque and skirt of some
stiff, near-silk material, and her waist, which buttoned far down the
front and terminated in deep points, served merely to roof over but not
to conceal a peculiarity of figure which her farm dress had mercifully
hidden. Gray discovered that Ma's body, alas! bore a quaint resemblance
in outline to a g