The Secret Power

Mr. Sam Gwent stood in what was known as the "floral hall" of the Plaza Hotel, so called because it was built in colonnades which opened into various vistas of flowers and clambering vines growing with all the luxuriance common to California. He had just arrived, and while divesting himself of a light dust overcoat interrogated the official at the enquiry office.

"So he doesn't live here after all,"--he said--"Then where's he to be found?"

"Mr. Seaton has taken the hill hut"--replied the book-keeper--"'The hut of the dying' it is sometimes called. He prefers it to the hotel. The air is better for his lungs."

"Air? Lungs?"--Gwent sniffed contemptuously. "There's very little the matter with his lungs if he's the man I know! Where's this hut of the dying? Can I get there straight?"

The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared. Gwent stared openly. Here--if "prize beauties" were anything--was a real winner!

"This gentleman wants Mr. Seaton"--said the bookkeeper--"Just show him the way up the hill."

"Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy not common to his manner.

"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most ravishing way--"The path is quite easy to follow."

She preceded him out of the "floral hall," and across the great gardens, now in their most brilliant bloom to a gate which she opened, pointing with one hand towards the hill where the flat outline of the "hut of the dying" could be seen clear against the sky.

"There it is"--she explained--"It's nothing of a climb, even on the warmest day. And the air is quite different up there to what it is down here."

"Better, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes! Much better!"

"And is that why Mr. Seaton lives in the hut? On account of the air?"

Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture of indifference.

"I suppose so! How should I know? He is here for his health."

Sam Gwent uttered a curious inward sound, something between a grunt and a cough.

"Ah! I should like to know how long he's been ill!"

Manella again gave her graceful gesture.

"Surely you DO know if you are a friend of his?" she said.

He looked keenly at her.

"Are YOU a friend of his?"