the room.
She saw Gore's startled eyes follow them.

She even saw him crossing swiftly to where her mother and father sat.
Then she vanished into the darkness with Mazzetti. And the Mazzettis put
but one interpretation upon a young woman who strolls into the soft
darkness of the Promenade with a gigolo.

And Mary Hubbell knew this.

Gedeon Gore stood before Mr. and Mrs. Orson J. Hubbell. "Where is your
daughter?" he demanded, in French.

"Oh, howdy-do," chirped Mrs. Hubbell. "Well, it's Mr. Gore! We missed
you. I hope you haven't been sick."

"Where is your daughter?" demanded Gedeon Gore, in French. "Where is
Mary?"

Mrs. Hubbell caught the word Mary. "Oh, Mary. Why, she's gone out for a
walk with Mr. Mazzetti."

"Good God!" said Gedeon Gore, in perfectly plain English. And vanished.

Orson J. Hubbell sat a moment, thinking. Then, "Why, say, he talked
English. That young French fella talked English."

The young French fella, hatless, was skimming down the Promenade des
Anglais, looking intently ahead, and behind, and to the side, and all
around in the darkness. He seemed to be following a certain trail,
however. At one side of the great wide walk, facing the ocean, was a
canopied bandstand. In its dim shadow, he discerned a wisp of white. He
made for it, swiftly, silently. Mazzetti's voice low, eager, insistent.
Mazzetti's voice hoarse, ugly, importunate. The figure in white rose.
Gore stood before the two. The girl took a step toward him, but Mazzetti
took two steps and snarled like a villain in a movie, if a villain in a
movie could be heard to snarl.

"Get out of here!" said Mazzetti, in French, to Gore. "You pig! Swine!
To intrude when I talk with a lady. You are finished. Now she belongs to
me."

"The hell she does!" said Giddy Gory in perfectly plain American and
swung for Mazzetti with his bad right arm. Mazzetti, after the fashion
of his kind, let fly in most unsportsmanlike fashion with his feet,
kicking at Giddy's stomach and trying to bite with his small sharp
yellow teeth. And then Giddy's left, that had learned some neat tricks
of boxing in the days of the Gory greatness, landed fairly on the
Mazzetti nose. And with a howl of pain and rage and terror the
Mazzetti, a hand clapped to that bleeding feature, fled in the darkness.

And, "O, Giddy!" said Mary, "I thought you'd never come."

"Mary. Mary Hubbell. Did you know all the time? You did, didn't you? You
think I'm a bum, don't you? Don'