becoming, dear."

"But I shouldn't want Mr. Herrick to think--"

"He won't," replied Eve, soothingly. "No matter how intoxicated you got,
I'm sure he is too much of a gentleman to think any such thing."

"Any such thing as what?"

"Why, what you said."

"But I hadn't said!" declared Miss Mullett, sinking tragically onto the
couch. Whereupon Eve laughed, and Miss Mullett declared that rather than
have the gentleman think her the least bit--well--the very least bit,
you understand!--she would go right home. And Eve was forced to assure
her with serious face that she wasn't the least bit, and wasn't in any
danger of becoming so. Miss Mullett was comforted and Eve, who had been
standing by the marble-topped table, idly opened a book lying there. It
wasn't a very interesting volume, from her point of view, being a work
on metallurgy. She turned to the front and found Wade's name written on
the fly-leaf, and was about to lay it down when she caught sight of a
piece of paper marking a place. With no thought of prying, she opened
the book again. The paper proved to be an empty envelope addressed to
Wade in typewritten characters. In the upper left-hand corner was an
inscription that interested her: "After five days return to The Evelyn
Mining Co., Craig's Camp, Colo."

She studied the words for a long minute. Then she smiled and closed the
book again. Oddly enough, both she and Wade had discovered each other's
secrets that evening.

When the men joined them the Doctor suggested whist. Wade protested his
stupidity, but was overruled and assigned to Miss Mullett as partner.

"If you played like John Hobb," declared the Doctor, "you'd win with
Miss Mullett for partner."

Eve and Wade desired to know who John Hobb was, and the Doctor was
forced to acknowledge him a quite mythical character, whose name in that
part of the world stood proverbially for incompetence. After that when
any of the four made a mistake he or she was promptly dubbed John Hobb.
For once the unwritten law was unobserved, and it was long past ten when
the party broke up, Eve and the Doctor having captured the best of a
series of rubbers. After they had gone Wade put out the downstair lights
and returned to the side porch, where, with his pipe flaring fitfully in
the moonlit darkness, he lived over in thought the entire evening and
conjured up all sorts of pictures of Eve. When he finally went to bed
his last waking sensation was one of gratitude toward