“Now, my lady,” he asked, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Mr. Tisdale,” she answered directly.  “Of course you must see now, even if I do contrive to meet him through Frederic, as you suggested, and manage to see him frequently; even if I find out what he means to say in those coal reports, when it comes to influence, I won’t have the weight of a feather.  No woman could.  He is made of iron, and his principles were cast in the mold.”

“Every man has his vulnerable point, and I can trust you to find Hollis Tisdale’s.”  The delegate paused an instant, still regarding his wife’s face, frowning a little, yet not without humor, then said:  “But you have changed your attitude quickly.  Where did you learn so much about him?  How can you be so positive about a man you never have met?  Whom you have seen only a time or two at a distance, on some street—­or was it a hotel lobby?—­in Valdez or Fairbanks?”

“Yesterday, when we were talking, that was true; but since then I have seen him at close range.  I’ve heard him.”  She turned and met Feversham’s scrutiny with the brilliancy rising in her eyes.  “Last night at the clubhouse, when he told the story of David Weatherbee, I was there.”

“You were there?  Impossible!  That is against the rules.  Not a man of the Circle would have permitted it, and you certainly would have been discovered before you reached the assembly hall.  Why, I myself was the last to arrive.  Frederic, you remember, had to speed the car a little to get me there.  And I looked back from the door and saw you in the tonneau with Elizabeth, while Mrs. Weatherbee kept her place in front with Frederic.  You were going down the boulevard to spend the evening with her at Vivian Court.”

“That was our plan, but we turned back,” she explained.  “We had a curiosity to see the Circle seated around the banquet board in those ridiculous purple parkas.  And Frederic bet me a new electric runabout against the parka of silver fox and the mukluks I bought of the Esquimau girl at Valdez that we never could get as far as the assembly room.  He waited with Elizabeth in the car while we two crept up the stairs.  The door was open, and we stood almost screened by that portiere of Indian leather, peeping in.  Mr. Tisdale was telling the ptarmigan yarn—­it’s wonderful the power he has to hold the interest of a crowd of men—­and the chance was too good to miss.  We stole on up the steps to the gallery,—­no one noticed us,—­and concealed ourselves behind that hanging Kodiak bearskin.”

“Incredible!” exclaimed Feversham.  “But I see you arrived at the opportune moment,—­when Tisdale was talking.  There’s something occult about the personality of that man.  And she, Mrs. Weatherbee, heard everything?”

Marcia nodded.  “Even your graceful toast to her.”

At this he settled back in his seat, laughing.  “Well, I am glad I made it.  I could hardly have put it more neatly had I known she was there.”