“Can it be,” he pondered, “that the property which Elaine enjoys really belongs to that child? That the young girl was artfully brought up in ignorance of her rights? Has she been robbed? The young beauty may have broken away inopportunely, and appeared here to embarrass the youthful-looking beauty whom Alynton seems to adore.” He could see no possible solution of the problem. “Garston seems to be enraged at the mere idea of Alynton’s intimate relations. Can it be that a secret love in olden days has tied the proud Senator to this wonderful woman? He is dead set against her drifting into Alynton’s arms.” It was all a life puzzle. He was ready for the meanest suspicions, but the observations of Justine dispelled them. “Only friends; nothing more,” had been the verdict of a woman who would have gloried to have held her mistress in the clutches of blackmail. “And the love of the same woman has now, as usual, made Alynton and Garston secret foes,” decided Vreeland. He recalled the legendary source of Mrs. Willoughby’s tangible fortune, some Western windfall of vast richness. “She knew him before, she fears him now, and has spirited the girl away to keep them apart.” It seemed clear to Vreeland that some partner, or old associate, perhaps a client of Garston’s in the wild West, had owned both the property and the lovely woman in her flush of girlish beauty. “It seems to be an old passion,” mused Vreeland. “And now repulsed by the mother, whom evidently he has pursued, Garston would use the girl as a lever for his revenge. Once a breach effected with Alynton, and the girl his ally, then the Queen of the Street would either drift into his arms or have ‘to step down and out’—to abdicate the crown she has worn so long.” Vreeland lumbered along, building up fanciful solutions of the mystery. In the now almost incessant “duty service” near his beautiful fiancée, Vreeland a hundred times endeavored to trace back James Garston’s early life. But the blue-eyed Nixie who was soon to be his wife only laughed merrily. “Pray remember, sir, that Senator Garston is my guardian. After my dear father’s death, my mother went abroad, and I was educated in the ‘Sacré Cœur’ Convent at Brussels. Her death left me alone in the world. “‘Uncle James’ had been almost forgotten by me in the thirteen years which we passed in Paris and Brussels, and as I left the West a mere child, all my memories are the vanishing dreams of childhood. All his social past is a sealed book to me.” Vreeland was fain to be content, as the lovely ingenue concluded: “All I know is that he has always managed my affairs, and that his personal history is linked with the development of the whole region west of the Rockies. Why, you should know his history from your own Western wanderings.” “Was he ever married?” timidly hazarded Vreeland. But, the young society queen only laughed back.