Brent, I _am_ glad to see you! I want to introduce you
to Mrs. Palmer"--that name pronounced with the unconscious
pride of the possessor of _the_ jewel.

Brent bowed. Susan forced a smile.

"We," Palmer hastened on, "are on a sort of postponed
honeymoon. I didn't announce the marriage--didn't want to have
my friends out of pocket for presents. Besides, they'd have
sent us stuff fit only to furnish out a saloon or a hotel--and
we'd have had to use it or hurt their feelings. My wife's a
Western girl--from Indiana. She came on to study for the
stage. But"--he laughed delightedly--"I persuaded her to
change her mind."

"You are from the West?" said Brent in the formal tone one
uses in addressing a new acquaintance. "So am I. But that's
more years ago than you could count. I live in New York--when
I don't live here or in the Riviera."

The moment had passed when Susan could, without creating an
impossible scene, admit and compel Brent to admit that they
knew each other. What did it matter? Was it not best to
ignore the past? Probably Brent had done this deliberately,
assuming that she was beginning a new life with a clean slate.

"Been here long?" said Brent to Palmer.

As he and Palmer talked, she contrasted the two men. Palmer
was much the younger, much the handsomer. Yet in the
comparison Brent had the advantage. He looked as if he
amounted to a great deal, as if he had lived and had
understood life as the other man could not. The physical
difference between them was somewhat the difference between
look of lion and look of tiger. Brent looked strong; Palmer,
dangerous. She could not imagine either man failing of a
purpose he had set his heart upon. She could not imagine
Brent reaching for it in any but an open, direct, daring way.
She knew that the descendant of the supple Italians, the
graduate of the street schools of stealth and fraud, would not
care to have anything unless he got it by skill at subtlety.
She noted their dress. Brent was wearing his clothes in that
elegantly careless way which it was one of Freddie's
dreams--one of the vain ones--to attain. Brent's voice was
much more virile, was almost harsh, and in pronouncing some
words made the nerves tingle with a sensation of mingled
irritation and pleasure. Freddie's voice was manly enough,
but soft and dangerous, suggestive of hidden danger. She
compared the two men, as she knew them. She wondered how they
would seem to a co