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 the city, instead of in the heart of it. Around two tables which had been joined together, Floss gathered her flock. Grover found himself between Mamie Mangum and the Marchesa, who, to his relief, turned her back on him and addressed herself to the prince. On Mamie's left sat Oscar Hellgren, bubbling with heavy Swedish humor, and next to Hellgren Floss, under a sweeping hat of tautly stretched blue silk that gave the lie complete to Illinois, beamed with pride at being sandwiched between a successful sculptor and a successful painter. Armando Peñaverde, with his sleek, spare face, white teeth, and black hair, was behaving towards his other neighbor, Olga, in a manner which Grover could characterize only as exceedingly Spanish. For two hours on end he had been saying witty things to her in a low voice, but from all that one could detect in Olga's candid yet sphinx-like face, he had made no appreciable headway. Now and again Olga would laugh freely enough at Peñaverde's sallies, whatever they were; but whenever they overshot the mark she would counter with a sharp riposte, always on her guard, always in complete control of herself. In the main she seemed unwillingly interested in the Spaniard. She's cold, thought Grover, and hard; but for the man who could succeed in warming and softening her!

The prince and the Marchesa were talking horses, a subject on which Grover's information was infinity, plus or minus, since,—and that was the only pictur-