“If it was,” resumed Elizabeth, “if he has experimented far enough and wants to forfeit that bonus, I am going to buy that piece of Wenatchee desert myself.  The Novelty mills will pay me enough for my tide lands.”

“No, Elizabeth.  You will hold on to your tide lands, every foot.”  Mrs. Feversham paused to watch her sister’s eyes capitulate under the batteries of her own, then said:  “But you need not worry; Frederic will probably take that option off Lucky Banks’ hands.  Now, please do my puffs; high, you know, so as to use the paradise aigrette.”

Foster, too, had felt the change in Mrs. Weatherbee’s mood since he left her at the foot of the staircase; the exhilaration that had been so spontaneous then, that had seemed to expand to take him in, was now so manifestly forced.  And presently it came over him she was making conversation, saying all these neutral things about the villa and grounds to safeguard the one vital thing she feared to have him touch.

“Tell me about yourself,” he interrupted at last.  “You don’t know how I’ve worried about you; how I’ve blamed myself all these slow months for leaving you as I did.  Of course you understood the company decided to send me in to the Iditarod suddenly, with only a few hours’ notice, and to reach the interior while the summer trails were passable I had to take the steamer sailing that day.  I tried to find you, but you were out of town; so I wrote.”

“I received the letter,” she responded quickly.  “I want to thank you for it; it was very pleasant indeed to feel the security of a friend in reserve.  But you had written if there was anything you could do, or if, any time, I should need you to let you know, and there was no reason to.  I saw I had allowed you to guess the state of my finances; they had been a little depressed, I confess, but soon after you sailed, I gave an option on that desert land east of the Cascades and was paid a bonus of three thousand dollars.”

“Then Tisdale did take that property off your hands, after all.  I tried to make myself believe he would; but his offer to buy hinged on the practicability of that irrigation project.”

“I know.  He found it was practicable to carry it out.  But—­I gave the option to Mr. Banks.”

“Lucky Banks,” questioned Foster incredulously, “of Iditarod?  Why, he talked of a big farming scheme in Alaska.”

“I do not know about that.  But he had thought a great deal of David.  They had been partners, it seems, in Alaska.  Once, in a dreadful blizzard, he almost perished, and David rescued him.  He knew about the project and offered to make the payment of three thousand dollars to hold the land until he found out whether the scheme was feasible.  I needed the money very much.  There was a debt it was imperative to close.  So I accepted the bonus without waiting to let Mr. Tisdale know.”

Foster’s brows clouded.  “Well, why shouldn’t you?  Tisdale has himself to blame, if he let his opportunity go.”