And now they were estranged. A veil of indissoluble coldness separated them. Yet she was never curt or sharp or cross to him. Sometimes it seemed to him that she was the same in word and voice and manner as she had always been, only something had gone from her--light, cheer, gaiety, some inexpressible, loving, lovely thing that had made her the star of his life. Once, taking his courage in both hands, he had asked her if she was angry with him, and then shrank like a whipped dog before the startled negation of her eyes and her quick "Why, no, father! How could I be?" The one diversion of the colonel's life was the society of his fellow-boarders. Though he abused them roundly up-stairs to Viola, he took undoubted satisfaction in regaling them with the stories of his past greatness. Night after night he bestrode his hobby, and entertained an admiring circle with its evolutions. It was many years since he had had so large and so attentive an audience, and he profited by the occasion, giving even more remarkable accounts of the men he had made than those with which he had once amused John Gault. For some time his listeners awarded him a half-credulous attention; but soon their interest in the garrulous old man died away. Miss Mercer expressed the opinion that the colonel was "no better than an old, worn-out fake," a sentiment which found an echo in the breasts of every other inmate of the house--even Mrs. Seymour quietly, in her own mind, relegating him to the ranks of harmless frauds. The traditions of San Francisco were not known of all men in Sacramento. The colonel found that he was singing the songs of Zion in a strange land. No one believed him. When he spoke of his friendship with Adolphus Maroney, and how thirty years before he had laid the foundation of Jerry McCormick's fortune, the listeners made little attempt to hide their disbelief, and Mr. Betts and Charley Ryan took much delight in openly "joshing the old man." Bart Nelson did not indulge in this pastime, as he had conceived a violent, if secret, regard for Viola. One evening after dinner the "joshing" reached a climax against which even the colonel's egotistical infatuation was not proof. Viola was up-stairs, according to her custom; Mrs. Seymour was absent on her never-ending household duties; and Bart Nelson was out. There was no one to restrain the old man's foolish flights, and inspired by the ironically flattering queries of his listeners, his reminiscences became more vaingloriously brilliant than they had ever been before. His completion of an elaborate account of his patronage of Adolphus Maroney called forth from Mr. Betts the remark: "I don't see, colonel, how he can get on at all without you. Once you got from under him, it's a miracle he didn't entirely collapse." "No, not quite that," the colonel modestly deprecated. "Maroney was no fool--no fool; only speculative and lacking in foresight. When I got him on his feet he was able to go his way alone."