nesters to you?"

"I am nobody. They were kind to me and I'm interested in their future."

"Are you a fortune hunter, Mr. Gray?"

"I am." Gray's face instantly lighted. "I am the most conscienceless
fortune hunter you ever met, but--I am hunting my own fortune, not
Allie Briskow's."

"You needn't laugh. She's very--unusual and--But I dare say you
wouldn't tell me, anyhow."

"If I have excited your curiosity, I am delighted," Gray declared.
"Please let me return at lunch time and gratify it. I promise to talk
upon that subject which every man can discuss to best
advantage--himself--and I pledge myself not to ask one single question
about you, Miss Good. Not one--" He bowed ceremoniously over her hand.
"Although, as you can imagine, I'm dying to ask a thousand."

CHAPTER VIII

The luncheon hour was long in arriving, and when it did come around
Calvin Gray regretted that he had elected to play a game of
make-believe with "Miss Good," for she rigidly held him to his promise,
and however adroitly he undertook to ascertain who or what she was, she
foiled him. It gave her a mischievous pleasure to evade his carefully
laid conversational traps, and what little he learned came from Ma
Briskow. Briefly, it amounted to this: Miss Good was what the elder
woman called "home folks," but she had been schooled in the East.
Moreover, she was in the oil business. This last bit of intelligence
naturally intrigued the man, and he undertook to gain further
illumination, but only to have the girl pretend that he knew all about
it. He accepted this checkmate with the best possible grace, but
revenged himself by assuming the airs and privileges of a friend more
intimate even than Miss Good had implied, a pretense that confused and
even annoyed her. For some reason this counterfeit pleased him; it was
extremely agreeable even to pretend a close acquaintance with this girl.

The luncheon went off gaily enough, then Gray was again banished with
instructions to return at closing time.

"You took a mean, a malicious advantage of an offer intended only to
spare your feelings. And you haven't any," he told Miss Good when they
had a chance for a word alone.

"I have no feelings?"

"None. Or you'd see that I'm perishing of curiosity."

She shook her head, and her blue eyes laughed at him provokingly.
"Curiosity is fatal only to cats. It is good for people."

"I shall find out all about you."

"How?"

"By cross-examining the Bris