Miss Hathaway made no reply. It was one of her idiosyncrasies never to take the slightest notice of a compliment. She was looking very handsome, although her attire, as ever, suggested a cold disregard of the looking-glass. Thorpe, who was beginning to understand her, did not feel snubbed, but fell to wondering what sort of a time Hastings would have of it when he proposed. She regarded him meditatively for a moment, then remarked; "You are absent-minded to-night, and that makes you look rather stupid." Again Thorpe was not disconcerted. Speeches of this sort from Miss Hathaway were to be hailed as signs of favour. If she did not like a man, she did not talk to him at all. He might sit opposite her throughout the night, and she would not part her lips. "I am stupid," he replied. "I have been all day." "What is the matter?" Her voice did not soften as another woman's might have done, but it betrayed interest. "Are you puzzling?" He coloured, nettled at her insight; but he answered, coldly:-- "Yes; I am puzzling." "Do not," said Miss Hathaway, significantly. "Puzzle about any one else in California, but not about Nina Randolph." "What is this mystery?" he exclaimed impatiently, then added hastily, "oh, bother! I am too much of a wanderer to puzzle over any one." Miss Hathaway fixed her large cold blue regard upon him. "Do you love Nina Randolph?" she asked. "I am afraid I love all women too much to trust to my own selection of one." "Now you are stupid. Go and talk to Nina." She turned her back upon him, and smiled indulgently to a new-comer. He crossed the room; a group of men parted with indifferent grace, and he leaned over Nina's chair. She was looking gay and free of care, and her eyes flashed a frank welcome to Thorpe. "I thought you were not coming to talk to me," she said, with a little pout. "Duty first," he murmured. "Come over into the little reception-room and talk to me." "What am I to do with all these men?" "Nothing." "You are very exacting--for a friend." "If you are a good friend, you will come. I am tired and bored." She rose, shook out her pretty pink skirts, nodded to her admirers, and walked off with Thorpe. He laughed. "Perhaps they will console themselves with the reflection that as they have spoiled you, they should stand the consequences." They took possession of a little sofa in the reception-room. Another couple was in the window curve, and yet another opposite. "We have not had our hunt," said Nina; "the country has been a mud-hole. But we are to have it on Monday, if all goes well." "Who else is to be of the party?" "Molly, Guadalupe, and Captain Hastings. Don't speak of it to any one else. I don't want a crowd."