She ignored the pleading and took refuge in a woman’s expedient.

“If you insist on going back to the beginnings, I shall go back, also—­to Abigail and the trunk-packing.”

He planted himself squarely before her, the mask lifted and the masterful soul asserting itself boldly.

“It wouldn’t do any good, you know.  I am going with you.”

“To Abigail and the trunk-room?”

“Oh, no; to the jumping-off place out West—­wherever it is you are going to hibernate.”

“No,” she said decisively; “you must not.”

“Why?”

“My saying so ought to be sufficient reason.”

“It isn’t,” he contended, frowning down on her good-naturedly.  “Shall I tell you why you don’t want me to go?  It is because you are afraid.”

“I am not,” she denied.

“Yes, you are.  You know in your own heart there is no reason why you should continue to make me unhappy, and you are afraid I might over-persuade you.”

Her eyes—­they were the serene eyes of cool gray that take on slate-blue tints in stressful moments—­met his defiantly.

“If you think that, I withdraw my objection,” she said coldly.  “Mother and Penelope will be delighted, I am sure.”

“And you will be bored, world without end,” he laughed.  “Never mind; I’ll be decent about it and keep out of your way as much as you like.”

Again she made the little gesture of petulant impatience.

“You are continually placing me in a false position.  Can’t you leave me out of it entirely?”

It is one of the prime requisites of successful mastership to know when to press the point home, and when to recede gracefully.  Ormsby abruptly shut the door upon sentiment and came down to things practical.

“It is your every-day comfort that concerns me chiefly.  I am going to take all three of you in charge, giving the dependable young person a well-earned holiday—­a little journey in which she won’t have to chaffer with the transit people.  Have you chosen your route to the western somewhere?”

Miss Brentwood had the fair, transparent skin that tells tales, and the blue-gray eyes were apt to confirm them.  David Kent’s letter was hidden in the folds of her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it stirred like a thing alive to remind her of its message.  Ormsby was looking past her to the old-fashioned ormolu clock on the high mantel, comparing the time with his watch, but he was not oblivious of the telltale flush.

“There is nothing embarrassing about the choosing of a route, is there?” he queried.

“Oh, no; being true Americans, we don’t know one route from another in our own country,” she confessed.  “But at the western end of it we want to go over the Western Pacific.”

Ormsby knew the West by rail routes as one who travels much for time-killing purposes.

“It’s a rather roundabout cow-path,” he objected.  “The Overland Short Line is a good bit more direct; not to mention the service, which is a lot better.”