is he now? And awful
things--things like this meeting--coming up."

"What besides this meeting?"

"At Santa Ysobel."

"What? Things that have happened since the boy's gone? You couldn't get
much idea of the lay of the land when you were down there Wednesday,
could you?"

"Oh, but I could--I did," earnestly. "Of course it was a large funeral;
it seemed to me I saw everybody I'd ever known. At a time like that,
nothing would be said openly, but the drift was all in one direction.
They couldn't understand Worth, and so nearly every one who spoke of
him, picked at him, trying to understand him. Mrs. Thornhill's cook was
already telling that Worth had quarreled with his father and demanded
money. I shouldn't wonder if by now Santa Ysobel's set the exact hour of
the quarrel."

"Me for down there as quick as I can," I muttered, and Barbara, facing
me sympathetically, offered,

"I've a letter from Skeet Thornhill," she groped in her bag again,
mumbling as women do when they're hunting for a thing, "It came this
morning.... Mrs. Thornhill's no better--worse, I judge.... Oh, here it
is," and she pulled out a couple of closely scribbled sheets. "The child
writes a wild hand," she apologized, as she passed these over.

The flapper dashed into her letter with a sort of incoherent squeal. The
carnival ball was only four days off. Everybody was already dead on his,
her or its feet. The decorations they'd planned were enough to kill a
horse--let alone getting up costumes. "As usual, everything seems to be
going to the devil here," she went on; "Got a cannery girl elected
festival queen this time. Ina's furious, of course. Moms had a letter
from her that singed the envelope; but I sort of enjoy seeing the
cannery district break in. They've got the money these days."

Nothing here to my purpose. Barbara reached forward and turned the sheet
for me, and I saw Worth Gilbert's name half way down it.

"Doctor Bowman is an old hell-cat, and I hate him." Skeet made her
points with a fine simplicity. "Since mother's sick, he comes here every
day, though what he does but sit and shoot off his mouth and get her all
worked up is more than I can see. Yesterday I was in the room when he
was there, and he got to talking about Worth--the meanest, lowest-down,
hinting talk you ever heard! Said Worth got a lot of money when his
father died, and I flared up and said what of it? Did he think Mr.
Gilbert ought to have left it to him? That hit hi