Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.

"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
straight--that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
'the house'--that is, the bank--is protected. My machines was always
straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
'fixed' in me favor."

Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
going."

He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
explained, and dutifully rose.

"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."

Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."

Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.

"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
he inquired.

"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.

Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
about those delightful games of chance."

Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.

As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
last to her.

Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
gambling talk at the studio. "Why _must_ he always go back to that?" she
asked, hotly.

They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
while the Captain discussed his sister a