"Then that's the price," decided Johnny. "Can't we come to an agreement now?"

"To-morrow afternoon at three," she dryly insisted.

He saw that she meant to-morrow afternoon at three.

"Can't I arrange with you for a twenty-four-hour option?" he begged, becoming anxious.

"I shall not bind myself in any way," she declared. "To-morrow afternoon at three."

"That's a beautiful piece of property," commented Johnny as they drove by. "By George, the apartment-house will shut those people off from the river!"

"That's the only reason she'd be willing to sell," replied Val. "What set you hunting up this property?"

"The De Luxe Apartments Company intends confining its operations to this quarter. They'll go scouting among the listed properties first--and they may not find this one until I am asking them two hundred and fifty for it."

That afternoon, Johnny, always prompt, was ahead of time at the final committee meeting of the Babies' Fund Fair, but Constance Joy did not seem in the least surprised at his punctuality.

"I was in hopes you'd come early," she greeted him. "I want to show you the score board of your game."

"Honest, did you make one?" he asked, half-incredulous of his good fortune, as she led the way into the library; and his eyes further betrayed his delight when she showed him the score board itself.

"See," she pointed out, "you were to make five thousand dollars an hour for two hundred working hours, beginning on April twenty-second and ending May thirty-first."

Johnny examined the board with eager interest. It was ruled into tiny squares, forty blocks long and seven deep.

"I want to frame that when we're through," he said, admiring the perfect drawing.

"Suppose you lose?" she suggested, smiling to herself at his unconscious use of the word "we".

"No chance," he stoutly returned. "I have to paste a five-thousand-dollar bill in each one of those blocks."

"You've kept your paste brush busy," she congratulated him, marveling anew at how he had done it, as she glanced at the record which she had herself set down. "I have the little squares crossed off up to two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars."

"The money's in Loring's bank," he cheerfully a.s.sured her. "That pays me up to next Tuesday, May second, at two o'clock. This is two o'clock, Thursday. I have twenty-four working hours to loaf."

"Lazy!" she bantered him. "That isn't loafing time; it's only a safety margin."

Her eagerness about it pleased Johnny very much. When he had his million he intended to ask her to marry him; and it was pleasant to have her, all unaware of his purpose, of course, taking such an acute interest in this big game.

"If a man plays too safe he goes broke," objected Johnny seriously, still intent on the diagram, however. "I notice that none of these Sundays or Sat.u.r.day afternoons have money in them. According to my plan I also allowed for two possible holidays; but why are those two special days left white?"

"Well," hesitated Constance, flushing slightly, "May thirtieth is Decoration Day; and then I allowed for a possible birthday."

"Birthday?" he repeated, perplexed. "Whose?"

"Oh, anybody's," she hastily a.s.sured him. "You can move the date to suit. You know you said you weren't going to work on Sundays, evenings, holidays or birthdays."

"I have but one birthday this year, and it comes in the fall," he answered, laughing; then suddenly a dazzling light blinded him. "It's the score keeper's!" he guessed.

In spite of all her efforts to prevent it Constance blushed furiously.

"I had intended to give a little party on the nineteenth," she confessed.

"I'm coming!" he emphatically announced.

Aunt Pattie Boyden swept into the room, and Johnny immediately felt that he had on tight shoes. He had once made a fatal error before Aunt Pattie; he had confessed to having been a voter before he owned a dress suit.

Paul Gresham arrived, and Aunt Pattie was as the essence of violets.

Paul, though American-born, was a second cousin of Lord Yawpingham.

Johnny and Paul sat and inwardly barked at each other. Johnny almost barked outwardly.

Val Russel and Bruce Townley came, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, Johnny," said Val, "I just now saw your newest speculation driving down the Avenue in a pea-green gown and a purple hat."

"I never had a speculation like that," denied Johnny.

"Sounds like a scandal," decided Bruce Townley.

"You might as well tell it, Val," laughed Constance with a mischievous glance at Johnny.

"It hasn't gone very far as yet," replied Val, enjoying Johnny's discomfort, "but it promises well. Johnny and I called upon a wealthy spinster, away upon Riverside Drive, this morning, ostensibly to buy real estate."

Val, leaning his cheek upon his knuckles with his middle finger upon his temple, imitated Miss Purry's languishing air so perfectly that Aunt Pattie and Gresham, both of whom knew the lady, could see her in the flesh--or at least in the bone.

"'Ostensible' is a good word in that neighborhood," opined Gresham lightly. "Were you trying to buy Miss Purry's vacant riverfront property?"

Notwithstanding his seeming nonchalance, Gresham betrayed an earnest interest which Constance noted, and she turned to Johnny with a quick little shake of her head, but he was already answering, and she frowned slightly.

Mrs. Follison arrived, and after her the rest of the committee came trooping by twos and threes,--a bright, busy, chattering mob which stopped all personal conversation.

Last of all came Polly Parsons, accompanied by Ashley Loring and Sammy Chirp, and by the fluffy little orphan whom she had been keeping in school for the last three years.

"I know I'm late," declared Polly defiantly; "but I don't adopt a sister every day. I stopped at Loring's office to do it, and I'm so proud I'm cross-eyed. Sister Winnie, shake hands with everybody and then run out in the gardens with Sammy."

Dutifully, Winnie, in her new role of sister, shook hands with everybody and clenched their friendship with her wide blue eyes and her ingenuous smile; and, dutifully, Sammy Chirp, laden with her sun-hat and parasol and fan, her vanity box and lace hand-bag, took her out into the gardens, and the proceedings began as they usually did when Polly Parsons arrived. Subcommittees took cheerful and happy possession of the most comfortable locations they could find, and Constance Joy walked Ashley Loring out through the side porch.

"There's a very cozy and retired seat in the summer-house," she informed him. "I wish to have a tete-a-tete with you on a most important business matter."

"You may have a tete-a-tete with me on any subject whatsoever," laughed Loring. "I suppose it's about those Johnny Gamble attachments, however."

"It's about that exactly," she acknowledged. "What have you learned of the one for fifty thousand dollars which was attempted to be laid against Mr. Gamble's interest in that hotel property yesterday?"

"Very little," he confessed. "It is of the same sort as the one we discussed the other day."

Constance nodded. "Fraudulent, probably," she guessed.

"I think so myself," agreed Loring. "Trouble is, n.o.body can locate the Gamble-Collaton books."