"No; Miss Van Allen. Who is he?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Only as Mrs. Reeves says he is coming
here tonight, I'd like to know something about him."

"Coming here! A man you don't know?" I drew up a chair to join the
group. "How can he?"

"Mr. Steele is going to bring him," said Mrs. Reeves. "He
says--Norman Steele says, that Mr. Somers is a first-class all-around
chap, and no end of fun. Says he's a millionaire."

"What's a millionaire more or less to me?" laughed Vicky. "I choose my
friends for their lovely character, not for their wealth."

"Yes, you've selected all of us for that, dear," agreed Mrs. Reeves,
"but this Somers gentleman may be amiable, too."

Mrs. Reeves was a solid, sensible sort of person, who acted as ballast
for the volatile Vicky, and sometimes reprimanded her in a mild way.

"I love the child," she had said to me once, "and she is a little
brick. But once in a while I have to tell her a few things for the
good of the community. She takes it all like an angel."

"Well, I don't care," Vicky went on, "Norman Steele has no right to
bring anybody here whom he hasn't asked me about. If I don't like him,
I shall ask some of you nice, amiable men to get me a long plank, and
we'll put it out of a window, and make him walk it. Shall we?"