almost lover-like emphasis.
"I--I think I am just a trifle aghast at my good luck in finding you
again. It seemed so utterly hopeless, you know. Don't you think--"

But now the president had stalked in, and his high querulous voice was
marshaling the party breakfastward. Ford manoeuvered skilfully in the
pairing off, and so succeeded in securing Miss Adair for a companion on
the short walk across to the Grand Pacific.

"You were about to ask me something when Uncle Sidney interrupted you,"
she prompted, when they were clear of the throng in the station
vestibule.

"Yes; I was going to ask if you don't think it was unnecessarily cruel
to send me that note of thanks unsigned."

"Cruel?" she echoed, and her laugh was so exactly a replica of her
brother's that Ford wondered why the reminiscent arrow had not gone at
once to its mark. "How absurd! What possible difference could it make?"

"It made a lot of difference to me," said Ford, refusing to be brushed
aside. "How did you expect I was ever going to be able to find you
again, without even your name as a clue?"

She glanced up at him with unfeigned interest. The men of her world were
not altogether unappreciative; neither were they so primitively
straightforward as this young industry captain out of the West.

"It is not impossible that I never thought of your finding me again,"
she said, and only the tone saved it from being a small slap in the
face.

Ford took the rebuff as a part of the day's work.

"Perhaps you didn't," he admitted. "But I mean to go on hoping that you
did."

"The idea!" she scoffed; but this time she blunted the keen edge of the
rebuke by adding: "I thought, perhaps, we might meet again, sometime.
You see, we are all stock-holders in the Pacific Southwestern; my
brother, Aunt Hetty and I; and Uncle Sidney had shown us a letter--it
was from Mr. North, I think--saying that you were likely to come to New
York with some kind of a plan of reorganization. So when you gave me
your card, I knew at once who you were."

Ford made an immediate mental note of the bit of information implicating
Mr. North, but did not allow himself to be diverted by the business
affair.

"Yes, I know; but that didn't help me a little bit," he protested,
wishing that the distance to the hotel were twice as far.

"That was just because it happened so; you ran away before my brother
had a chance to offer you any hospitality," she explained. Then, before
he could say