"That's Miss Constance Joy—an orphan worth an exact million dollars; although I believe there is some sort of a string to it," Loring told him. "She lives with her aunt, who is Mrs. Pattie Boyden, and she's so pretty that even women forgive her. Anything else you want to know?" 

 "Yes. Why do I want to bite Paul Gresham?" 

 "Hush!" admonished Loring. "He is the remnant of one of our very best imported families, and he needs the money. He sells a piece of father's property every year, and he haunts Miss Joy like a pestilence. I think he's mixed up in her million some way or other. Aunt Pattie approves of him very much; she is strong for family." 

 "I'll bite him yet," decided Gamble. "Say, Loring, how am I going to make a stringless million?" 

 "If I knew that, I wouldn't be your lawyer," declared Loring. "Excuse me, Johnny; there's a client of mine." 

 

 

 CHAPTER II 

 IN WHICH STRANGERS BECOME OLD FRIENDS 

 Into the box where Miss Constance Joy—slender and dark and tall—entertained her bevy of admirers, there swished a violently-gowned young woman of buxom build and hearty manner, attended by a young man who wore a hundred-dollar suit and smiled feebly whenever he caught an eye. In his right hand he carried Miss Polly Parsons' gloves and parasol; in his left, her race-card and hand-bag. Round his shoulders swung her field-glasses; from his right pocket protruded her fan and from his left her auto veil. She carried her own vanity box. 

 "If you aren't the darlingest thing in the world!" she greeted Miss Joy, whose face had lighted with a smile of both amusement and pleasure. "You certainly are some Con! Every time I see you in a new gown I change my dressmaker. Hello, boys!" She shook hands cordially with all of them as soon as she had paid her brief respects to Mrs. Pattie Boyden, who was pleasant and indulgent enough in her greeting, though not needlessly so. 

 "You're looking as happy as ever, Polly," observed Constance. 

 "I'm as happy as a mosquito in a baby's crib," avowed Polly. "I've added three thousand to-day to the 

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