Before very long they were the best of friends. Laura found him not only useful, but a delightful companion. What time could be spent from rehearsals, she spent with him. In the familiar, intimate, theatrical style, they already called each other by their first names. They went out horseback riding together, and he took her for long automobile trips, showing her many of the wonderful places with which Colorado abounds. They played golf at Broadmoor, and fished black-spotted trout in South Platte river. They drank health-giving waters at Great Spirit Springs, and viewed the reconstructed ruins of the prehistoric cliff-dwellers at Manitou. They traveled on the cog railroad to the dizzy summit of Pike's Peak, and visited the busy gold-mining camp at Cripple Creek. Here Madison was on familiar ground. He showed his companion the manner in which man wrests the coveted treasure from Nature, the whole process of mining, the powerful electric drills, the ponderous machinery, the ore deposits in the hard granite. He pointed out the miners' cabins on the mountainsides, replicas of the rough log huts in Alaska in which he, himself, had lived. It was all very interesting and so novel that for the first time in her life Laura felt the delightful sensation of seeing something new. Time had no longer any significance to her. The days and weeks sped by so pleasantly that she gave no thought to returning East. Sometimes she even forgot to write her weekly letter to Mr. Brockton. She marveled herself that she could be so happy and contented far away from the alluring glitter of the Great White Way. Then all at once the truth dawned upon her, and the revelation came with the suddenness and force of an unexpected blow. She was in love with this man. All these weeks, unknown to herself, quite unconsciously, she had been slowly falling desperately, madly, honestly and decently in love. The man she left behind in New York, the man to whom she owed everything, did not exist any more. John Madison was the man she loved. At first she tried to laugh it off as being too absurd. She, Laura Murdock, with her ripe experience of the world and many adventures with men--to fall in love like a silly, sentimental schoolgirl! It was too ridiculous. How the Rialto would laugh if they knew. Of course, they never would know, for there was nothing in it. The Westerner probably did not care two straws for her. He liked her, of course, or he would not bother to waste his time with her, but, no doubt, he thought of her only as a friend, a lively companion who kept him amused. No doubt, too, he knew her record and secretly despised her. Even if he did not care for her and told her so--even if he were willing to marry her, what then? She would be a fool to listen to him. What kind of a life could he, a penniless scribbler, give her compared with the comforts and gifts which Willard Brockton was able to shower upon her?