Arcadia Company's stock at the triumphal climax."

He was standing with one foot on the car step and his hands buried in
the pockets of his short working-coat. His eyes narrowed to regard her
thoughtfully.

"What do you know about such things?" he demurred. "You know altogether
too much for one small bachelor maid. It's uncanny."

"I am the cow-punching princess of Arcadia, and Mr. Pelham's natural
enemy, you must remember," she countered, with a laugh that sounded
entirely care-free. "I could tell you more about the stock affair. Mr.
Pelham has been very liberal with his friends in the floating of this
great and glorious undertaking--to borrow one of his pet phrases. He has
placed considerable quantities of the Arcadia Company's stock among them
at merely nominal prices, asking only that they sign a 'gentlemen's
agreement' not to resell any of it, so that my father could get it. But
there is a wheel within that wheel, too. Something more than half of the
nominal capitalisation has been reserved as 'treasury stock.' When the
enthusiasm reaches the proper height, this reserved stock will be put
upon the market. People will be eager to buy it--won't they?--with the
work all done, and everything in readiness to tap the stream of sudden
wealth?"

"Probably: that would be the natural inference."

"I thought so. And, as the company's chief engineer, you could doubtless
get in on the 'ground floor' that Mr. Pelham is always talking about,
couldn't you?"

The question was one to prick an honest man in his tenderest part.
Ballard was hurt, and his face advertised it.

"See here, little girl," he said, flinging the formalities to the winds;
"I am the company's hired man at the present moment, but that is
entirely without prejudice to my convictions, or to the fact that some
day I am going to marry you. I hope that defines my attitude. As matters
stand, Mr. Pelham couldn't hand me out any of his stock on a silver
platter!"

"And Mr. Bromley?"

"You needn't fear for Loudon; he isn't going to invest, either. You know
very well that he is in precisely the same boat that I am."

"How shocking!" she exclaimed, with an embarrassed little laugh. "Is Mr.
Bromley to marry your widow? Or are you to figure as the consolation
prize for his widow? Doubtless you have arranged it amicably between
you."

Having said the incendiary thing, he brazened it out like a man and a
lover.

"It's no joke. I suppose I might sidestep, but I s