this slender, attractive woman only a few years older than Alice
herself. There was a self-possession about Mrs. Gorham, a quiet dignity,
which made the difference in their ages seem greater than it really was;
yet, had he not known, Allen would have thought them sisters. His father
was sceptical when he heard of Gorham's second marriage: "It's bigamy,
that's what it is," were Stephen Sanford's words. "Gorham is married to
his business. Everything he touches turns into gold. Business to him is
what a great passion for a woman would be to one man, or a supreme
friendship to another; but the lever which moves Robert Gorham is
neither love nor steel; it is cold, hard cash."

All this flashed through Allen's mind in that brief moment of silence
after the introduction, but the thoughts of at least one of the two
women had been equally active. To Alice this chance meeting recalled a
time in her life sanctified by the loss of her mother, later made easier
to look back upon by the rare sympathy which had existed from the first
between herself and the sweet, tactful woman who had come into her life,
filling the aching void and awakening her to a new interest in her
surroundings. She and Allen had been "chums" in those early days, and it
gratified her to discover that the boy whom she had admired in a
childish way had become a young man so agreeable to look upon and so
little changed, except in growth, from the lad she remembered. His six
feet of height carried him to a greater altitude than of old, his
well-developed arms and shoulders showed a physical strength which his
youth had not promised, but his face wore the same frank, care-free,
irresponsible and good-natured expression which had made him beloved by
all his acquaintances and taken seriously by none.

Allen's smile returned before he found his voice, and was so infectious
that Alice, Mrs. Gorham, and Patricia were also smiling broadly.