k."

"That's a queer expression to apply to a lady," said Harley. "It smacks
of the Bowery."

"And what if it does?" replied Hobart, coolly. "I often find the Bowery
both terse and truthful. And in this case the expression fits Miss
Morgan. She's the real article--no fuss and frills, just a daughter of
the West, never pretending that she is what she isn't. I heard her speak
of you, Harley, and I don't think she likes you, old man. What have you
been doing?"

"I hope I have been behaving as a gentleman should," replied Harley,
with some asperity; "and if I have been unlucky enough to incur her
dislike, I shall endure it as best I can."

He spoke in an indifferent tone, as if his endurance would not be
severely tested.

"But you are missing a good time," said Hobart. "There are not less than
a dozen of us at her feet, and the Grayson car is full of jollity. I'm
going back."

He returned to the car, and Harley was left alone just then, as he
wished to be, and with an effort he dismissed Miss Morgan from his
thoughts. Mr. Grayson would speak that night in Chicago, and an audience
of twenty thousand people was assured; this fact and the other one, that
it would be his initial address, making the event of the first
importance.

Harley as a correspondent was able not only to chronicle facts, which is
no great feat, but also to tell why, to state the connection between
them, and to re-create the atmosphere in which those facts occurred and
which made them possible. He was well aware that a fact was dependent
for its quality--that is, for its degree of good or evil--upon its
surrounding atmosphere, just as a man is influenced by the air that he
breathes, and for this reason he wished to send in advance a despatch
about Mr. Grayson and his personality as created by his birth and
associations.

He rested his pad on the car-seat and began to write, but Miss Morgan
intruded herself in the first line. This question of character, created
by environment, would apply to her as well as to her uncle; but Harley,
angrily refusing to consider it, tore off the sheet of paper and,
throwing it on the floor, began again. The second trial was more
successful, and he soon became absorbed in the effort to describe Mr.
Grayson and his remarkable personality, which might be either deep and
complex or of the simplest Western type.

As he wrote Harley became more and more absorbed in his subject, and
with the absorption came spontaneity.