Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/133

Rh interval between the second and third acts that they found time to look about the house. Letitia and Pearl were in the front of the box, the latter on the inner side nearest the audience, with John Gault sitting behind her in the shadow of the curtain. While Letitia looked about the house through her lorgnon she could hear the animated chatter of Pearl, interspersed with comments from Maud Gault and Tod.

"Do you see that woman in the box opposite—the pale one with the piece of blue velvet twisted in her hair? She came up with the company, and her husband is a professional gambler in Mexico and makes heaps of money. You can ask Tod if you don't believe me."

Tod said it was all true, and that she was a "peach," a form of encomium that, in his vast appreciation, he was fond of applying to every member of the other sex that came within range of his admiring eye.

"In the box above, where the two good-looking men are, that little red, squeezed-looking woman is Lady Jervis, who used to be Tiny Madison ever so long ago. She went abroad and married Sir Somebody or other Jervis, and she 's out here now with a syndicate."

"What is she doing with a syndicate?" Mrs. Gault asked. "Is she going on the stage?"

"No; they 're buying mines or railroads or