Undine gave him a startled glance.  “Father?  Why, have you seen him?  He never said a word about it!”

Her companion’s whistle became audible.  “He’s running yet!” he said gaily.  “I wish I could scare some people as easy as I can your father.”

The girl hesitated.  “I never felt toward you the way father did,” she hazarded at length; and he gave her another long look in return.

“Well, if they’d left you alone I don’t believe you’d ever have acted mean to me,” was the conclusion he drew from it.

“I didn’t mean to, Elmer ...  I give you my word—­but I was so young ...  I didn’t know anything....”

His eyes had a twinkle of reminiscent pleasantry.  “No—­I don’t suppose it would teach a girl much to be engaged two years to a stiff like Millard Binch; and that was about all that had happened to you before I came along.”

Undine flushed to the forehead.  “Oh, Elmer—­I was only a child when I was engaged to Millard—­”

“That’s a fact.  And you went on being one a good while afterward.  The Apex Eagle always head-lined you ’The child-bride’—­”

“I can’t see what’s the use—­now—.”

“That ruled out of court too?  See here.  Undine—­what can we talk about?  I understood that was what we were here for.”

“Of course.”  She made an effort at recovery.  “I only meant to say—­what’s the use of raking up things that are over?”

“Rake up?  That’s the idea, is it?  Was that why you tried to cut me last night?”

“I—­oh, Elmer!  I didn’t mean to; only, you see, I’m engaged.”

“Oh, I saw that fast enough.  I’d have seen it even if I didn’t read the papers.”  He gave a short laugh.  “He was feeling pretty good, sitting there alongside of you, wasn’t he?  I don’t wonder he was.  I remember.  But I don’t see that that was a reason for cold-shouldering me.  I’m a respectable member of society now—­I’m one of Harmon B. Driscoll’s private secretaries.”  He brought out the fact with mock solemnity.

But to Undine, though undoubtedly impressive, the statement did not immediately present itself as a subject for pleasantry.

“Elmer Moffatt—­you are?”

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?”