He laughed again. "Guess you'd have remembered me last night if you'd
known it."

She was following her own train of thought with a look of pale
intensity. "You're LIVING in New York, then--you're going to live here
right along?"

"Well, it looks that way; as long as I can hang on to this job. Great
men always gravitate to the metropolis. And I gravitated here just as
Uncle Harmon B. was looking round for somebody who could give him an
inside tip on the Eubaw mine deal--you know the Driscolls are
pretty deep in Eubaw. I happened to go out there after our little
unpleasantness at Apex, and it was just the time the deal went through.
So in one way your folks did me a good turn when they made Apex too hot
for me: funny to think of, ain't it?"

Undine, recovering herself, held out her hand impulsively.

"I'm real glad of it--I mean I'm real glad you've had such a stroke of
luck!"

"Much obliged," he returned. "By the way, you might mention the fact to
Abner E. Spragg next time you run across him."

"Father'll be real glad too, Elmer." She hesitated, and then went on:
"You must see now that it was natural father and mother should have felt
the way they did--"

"Oh, the only thing that struck me as unnatural was their making you