“Did you know Mr. Kent was going to board the train here?” she asked abruptly.

“Do you mean the gentleman Penelope has waylaid?  I haven’t the pleasure of his acquaintance.  Will you introduce us?”

V

JOURNEYS END—­

It had been a day of upsettings for David Kent, beginning with the late breakfast at which Neltje, the night watchman at the railway station, had brought him Penelope’s telegram.

At ten he had a case in court:  Shotwell vs.  Western Pacific Co., damages for stock-killing; for the plaintiff—­Hawk; for the defendant—­Kent.  With the thought that he was presently going to see Elinor again, Kent went gaily to the battle legal, meaning to wring victory out of a jury drawn for the most part from the plaintiff’s stock-raising neighbors.  By dint of great perseverance he managed to prolong the fight until the middle of the afternoon, was worsted, as usual, and so far lost his temper as to get himself called down by the judge, MacFarlane.

Whereupon he went back to the Farquhar Building and to his office and sat down at the type-writer to pound out a letter to the general counsel, resigning his sinecure.  The Shotwell case was the third he had lost for the company in a single court term.  Justice for the railroad company, under present agrarian conditions, was not to be had in the lower courts, and he was weary of fighting the losing battle.  Therefore——­

In the midst of the type-rattling the boy that served the few occupied offices in the Farquhar Building had brought the afternoon mail.  It included a letter from Loring, and there was another reversive upheaval for the exile.  Loring’s business at the capital was no longer a secret.  He had been tendered the resident management of the Western Pacific, with headquarters on the ground, and had accepted.  His letter was a brief note, asking Kent to report at once for legal duty in the larger field.

“I am not fairly in the saddle yet, and shall not be for a week or so,” wrote the newly appointed manager.  “But I find I am going to need a level-headed lawyer at my elbow from the jump—­one who knows the State political ropes and isn’t afraid of a scrap.  Come in on Number Three to-day, if you can; if not, send a wire and say when I may look for you.  Or, better still, wire anyway.”

David Kent struggled with his emotions until he had got his feet down to the solid earth again.  Then he tore up the half-written resignation and began to smite things in order for the flight.  Could he make Number Three?  Since that was the train named in Penelope’s message, nothing short of a catastrophe should prevent his making it.