“I can’t, this time; much obliged,” said Kent; and they drove to the Building and Loan office where the joint letter of appraisal was written and signed.

Kent caught his train with something to spare, and was back at the capital in good time to keep a dinner engagement at Miss Van Brock’s.  He had understood that Ormsby would be the only other guest.  But Portia had a little surprise in store for him.  Loring had dropped in, unannounced, from the East; and Portia, having first ascertained that Mrs. Brentwood’s asthma was prohibitive of late dinings-out, had instructed Ormsby to bring Elinor and Penelope.

Kent had been saving the results of his deep-sea divings in the oil-field investigation to spread them out before Miss Van Brock and Ormsby “in committee,” but he put a padlock on his lips when he saw the others.

Portia gave him Elinor to take out, and he would have rejoiced brazenly if the table talk, from the bouillon to the ices, had not been persistently general, turning most naturally upon the Universal Oil Company’s successful coup in the Belmount field.  Kent kept out of it as much as he could, striving manfully to monopolize Elinor for his own especial behoof; but finally Portia laid her commands upon him.

“You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with Miss Brentwood any longer,” she said dictatorially.  “You know more about the unpublished part of this Belmount conspiracy than any one else excepting the conspirators themselves, and you are to tell us all about it.”

Kent looked up rather helplessly.

“Really, I—­I’m not sure that I know anything worth repeating at your dinner-table,” he protested.

But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution.

“You needn’t be afraid.  I pledged everybody to secrecy before you came.  It is understood that we are in ‘executive session.’  And if you don’t know much, you may tell us what you know now more than you knew before you knew so little as you know now.”

“Hold on,” said Kent; “will you please say that over again and say it slowly?”

“Never mind,” laughed Ormsby.  “Miss Portia has a copyright on that.  But before you begin, I’d like to know if the newspapers have it straight as far as they have gone into it?”

“They have, all but one small detail.  They are saying that Senator Duvall has left the city and the State.”

“Hasn’t he?” Loring asked.

“He hadn’t yesterday.”

“My-oh!” said Portia.  “They will mob him if he shows himself.”

Kent nodded assent.

“He knows it:  he is hiding out.  But I found him.”

“Where?” from the three women in chorus.

“In his own house, out in Pentland Place.  The family has been away since April, and the place has been shut up.  I took him the first meal he’d had in thirty-six hours.”

Portia clapped her hands.  The butler came in with the coffee and she dismissed him and bade him shut the doors.