Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/24

12 bered some of them, and now his eye passed blankly over the lines of darkened windows and the wide porticos where years before, on his vacations from college, he had entered as a guest.

But his thoughts were elsewhere.

How strange that the conversation should have taken that turn at dinner! Could Letitia have heard anything? Impossible! Even if she had, she was too simple-minded and direct to be so manuvering. This was the seventh time he had been to see Viola Reed—the seventh time in less than three months. What did he go for? He laughed a little to himself at the question, and throwing his head back, blew a film of cigarette smoke into the night. What did he go for? To pass the evenings, that otherwise would have been idly passed in his own rooms, or dully passed in society, or drearily passed in the pursuit of amusements he had long wearied of, in the society of a girl who pleased his critical taste, beguiled him of his boredom, and piqued his interest and curiosity.

Yes, that was the secret of her attraction for him. She was not like any one he had ever known before. She piqued his curiosity.

A picture of her rose before his mental vision, and with a shamefaced laugh at his own sentiment, he threw his cigarette away. Letitia