After lunch she and Dick went for a long walk, and Dick took advantage of her present gentle mood to tell her of his hope of a quick settlement of his divorce action and to discuss with her plans for their future. As they strolled along the shore road, Lola noticed, idly, a rather striking couple who seemed to keep at about the same distance ahead of them; father and daughter she thought they must be; a very pretty girl of perhaps eighteen and a man in the late fifties, but so hale and vigorous that at the first glance he suggested no thought of age; indeed, it was not until the couple turned and passed them that Lola, glancing quickly at him, saw on his face that in spite of his youthful step and almost soldierly bearing, he was a man of about her own father's time of life. The thought came to her, as for a moment she met his strong, eager glance of approval, as he saw her fresh young beauty and splendid vitality, that here was a man of real force.
"How queerly he looked to me," she thought, "this old man, with a daughter very little younger than I am myself. Yet when he saw me his eyes seemed to burn into mine. He is in mourning, too, for he wore a band on his arm, and the girl is in black; how queer men are. Are they always the same, boys and men, always like that? A girl has only to look at them, and they can think of nothing but her."
"Father!" The young lady looked almost angrily at him, then turning threw a quick look of scorn over her shoulder toward Lola.
"Was she, my dear?" remarked her father coldly. "I thought her rather pretty."
"Pretty! She is beautiful. I was looking at her at lunch. I thought she was sweet, although she was with impossible persons, but as she looked at you just now----"
"A very fine animal, Alice; she is a very beautiful woman, although I fancy you are right about her not being quite--quite the thing. The less notice you take of such people the better, my dear, unless you know something about who and what they are."
"That old boy," remarked Dick to Lola, looking after the couple who had just passed them, "is Howard Bradley, of Detroit, one of the biggest lumbermen in the country, said to be worth eight or ten millions."
"Really?" She looked up with a quick flash of interest.