d with a pang the last look he had seen in Ma Briskow's
eyes.

Gray was prepared to find his young friend's light o' love
superficially attractive, and she was all of that. He was not prepared,
however, to find her quite as good an actress as she appeared to be. In
spite of the fact that she probably took less pleasure in the meeting
than did he, she admirably covered her feelings. She was delighted,
flattered--Buddy had so often spoken of him that she almost felt
acquainted--She was quite excited at knowing the famous Colonel
Gray--She would have recognized him anywhere from Buddy's glowing
description.

Gray's heart sank as he studied Miss Montague. She was blond--to his
suspicious eye a trifle too blond--and she wore her hair bobbed. She
was petite and, both in appearance and in mannerism, she was girlish;
nevertheless, she was self-reliant, and there was a certain maturity to
her well-rounded figure, a suggestion of weariness about her eyes, that
told a story.

Following his first critical appraisal, Gray was vaguely conscious of
something familiar about her; somewhere within him the chords of
remembrance were lightly brushed; but try as he would he could not make
himself believe that he had ever seen her. Probably it was the type
that was familiar. He undertook to make sure by talking "show business"
at the first opportunity; she responded with enough spontaneity to give
an impression of candor, but her theatrical experience was limited and
that line of exploration led nowhere.

Whatever the pose she had adopted for Buddy's benefit, it was evident
now that she credited his friend with intelligence equal to her own,
and recognized the futility of deceit, therefore she made no attempt to
pass as anything except an experienced young woman of the world, and
Gray admired her for it. She smoked a good many cigarettes; her taste
in amusements was broad; she had sparkle and enthusiasm. She was, in
fact, a vibrant young person, and referred gayly to a road house
whither Buddy had taken her on the night before and where they had
danced until all hours. She loved to dance.

The elder man played host in his best and easiest style, both at dinner
and at the theater; then he passed the burden of entertainment over to
Buddy, first cheerfully declaring that he would not be sidetracked and
that he intended to impose his company upon the young couple whether
they wanted him or not. This was precisely to young Briskow's liking,