"Eh?" He looked at me startled, then put it aside negligently. "Oh, the money? No. I'll leave that up to Cummings." A brief pause. "We'll get a wiggle on us and dig up the suitcase." He lifted his tumbler, stared at it, then unseeingly out across the room, and his lip twitched in a half smile. "I'm sure glad I bought it." Looking at him, I had no reason to doubt his word. His enjoyment of the situation seemed to grow with every detail I brought up. It was near eleven when the party came in to take the long, flower-trimmed table. Worth's back was to the room; I saw them over his shoulder, in the lead a tall blonde, very smartly dressed, but not in evening clothes; in severe, exclusive street wear. The man with her, good looking, almost her own type, had that possessive air which seems somehow unmistakable--and there was a look about the half dozen companions after them, as they settled themselves in a great flurry of scraping chairs, that made me murmur with a grin, "Bet that's a wedding party." Worth gave them one quick glance, then came round to me with a smile. "You win. Married at Santa Ysobel this afternoon. Local society event. Whole place standing on its hind legs, taking notice." So he had been down to the little town to see his father after all. And he wasn't going to talk about it. Oh, well. "Friends of yours?" I asked perfunctorily, and he gave me a queer look out of the corners of those wicked eyes, repeating in an enjoying drawl. "Friends? Oh, hardly that. The girl I was to have married, and Bronson Vandeman--the man she has married." I had wanted to get a more intimate line on the kid--it seemed that here was a chance with a vengeance! "The rest of the bunch?" I suggested. He took a leisurely survey, and gave them three words: "Family and accomplices." "Santa Ysobel people, too, then. Folks you know well?" "Used to." "The lady changed her mind while you were across?" I risked the query. "While I was shedding my blood for my country." He nodded. "Gave me the butt while the Huns were using the bayonet on me." In the careless jeer, as much at himself as at her, no hint what his present feeling might be toward the fashion plate young female across there. With some fellows, in such a situation, I should have looked for a disposition to duck the encounter; let his old sweetheart's wedding party leave without seeing him; with others I should have discounted a dramatic moment when he would court the meeting. It was impossible to suppose either thing of Worth Gilbert; plain that he simply sat there because he sat there, and would make no move toward the other table unless something in that direction interested him--pleasantly or unpleasantly--which at present nothing seemed to do.