was stopping up the street at another hotel, and she would in all
probability be easily accessible about noon.

The seedy, strolling players drank their diluted brandy, smoked their
cigars, and told Mr. Walraven all this. They rather laughed at the New
York millionaire when he was out of sight. He had fallen in love with
pretty, blue-eyed Mollie, no doubt, and that was a very stale story with
the shabby players.

Noon came, and, speckless and respectable to the last degree, Mr.
Walraven presented himself at the other hotel, and sent up his card
with a waiter to Miss Dane.

The waiter ushered him into the hotel parlor, cold and prim as it is
in the nature of hotel parlors to be. Mr. Walraven sat down and stared
vaguely at the papered walls, rather at a loss as to what he should say
to this piquant Mollie, and wondering how he would feel if she laughed
at him.

"And she will laugh," he thought, with a mental groan; "she's the sort
of girl that laughs at everything. And she may refuse, too; there is no
making sure of a woman; and then what will Miriam say?"

He paused with a gasp. There was a quick patter of light feet down the
stairs, the last two cleared with a jump, a swish of silken skirts, a
little gush of perfume, and then, bright as a flash of light, blue-eyed
Mollie stood before him. She held his card in her fingers, and all the
yellow hair fell over her plump shoulders, like amber sunshine over
snow.