“And were you?”

“I swear to God, Jack, I’d have been content, and more, to have been just there with him, seein’ nobody, letting every one believe I was dead and gone, but he said it was wrong, and weak!  Maybe it was,” she added, with a shy, interrogating look at Jack, of which, however, he took no notice.  “Then when he found they wouldn’t call, what do you think he did?”

“Beat you, perhaps,” suggested Jack cheerfully.

“He never did a thing to me that wasn’t straight out, square, and kind,” she said, half indignantly, half hopelessly.  “He thought if his kind of people wouldn’t see me, I might like to see my own sort.  So without saying anything to me, he brought down, of all things!  Tinkie Clifford, she that used to dance in the cheap variety shows at ’Frisco, and her particular friend, Captain Sykes.  It would have just killed you, Jack,” she said, with a sudden hysteric burst of laughter, “to have seen Josh, in his square, straight-out way, trying to be civil and help things along.  But,” she went on, as suddenly relapsing into her former attitude of worried appeal, “I couldn’t stand it, and when she got to talking free and easy before Josh, and Captain Sykes to guzzling champagne, she and me had a row.  She allowed I was putting on airs, and I made her walk, in spite of Josh.”

“And Josh seemed to like it,” said Hamlin carelessly.  “Has he seen her since?”

“No; I reckon he’s cured of asking that kind of company for me.  And then we came here.  But I persuaded him not to begin by going round telling people who I was,—­as he did the last time,—­but to leave it to folks to find out if they wanted to, and he gave in.  Then he let me fix up this house and furnish it my own way, and I did!”

“Do you mean to say that you fixed up that family vault of a sitting-room?” said Jack, in horror.

“Yes, I didn’t want any fancy furniture or looking-glasses, and such like, to attract folks, nor anything to look like the old times.  I don’t think any of the boys would care to come here.  And I got rid of a lot of sporting travelers, ‘wild-cat’ managers, and that kind of tramp in this way.  But”—­She hesitated, and her face fell again.

“But what?” said Jack.

“I don’t think that Josh likes it either.  He brought home the other day ‘My Johnny is a Shoemakiyure,’ and wanted me to try it on the organ.  But it reminded me how we used to get just sick of singing it on and off the boards, and I couldn’t touch it.  He wanted me to go to the circus that was touring over at the cross roads, but it was the old Flanigin’s circus, you know, the one Gussie Riggs used to ride in, with its old clown and its old ringmaster and the old ‘wheezes,’ and I chucked it.”

“Look here,” said Jack, rising and surveying Mrs. Rylands critically.  “If you go on at this gait, I’ll tell you what that man of yours will do.  He’ll bolt with some of your old friends!”