After the first jumbled speeches of surprise, Ellsworth introduced the two.  Maugre his coatless costume, Dan Anderson was Princeton man upon the moment, and Barkley promptly hated him for it, feeling that in the nature of things the stranger should have been awkward and constrained.  Yet this man must, for business reasons, be handled carefully.  He must be the business friend, if the personal enemy, of Hon. Porter Barkley, general counsel for the A. P. and S. E. Railway.

The States had come to Sky Top, as Tom Osby had said, and this group, gathered around a mountain fireside, became suddenly as conventional as though they had met in a drawing-room.  “Who could have suspected that you were here, of all places, Mr. Anderson?” Constance remarked with polite surprise.

“Why, now, Dolly,” blundered Mr. Ellsworth, “didn’t the hotel fellow tell you that some one had come down from Heart’s Desire to hear the latest from grand opera—­private session—­chartered the hall, eh?  You might have guessed it would be Mr. Anderson, for I’ll warrant he’s the only man in Heart’s Desire that ever heard an opera singer before, or who would ride a hundred miles—­that is—­anyhow, Mr. Anderson, you are precisely the man we want to see.”  He finished his sentence lamely, for he understood in some mysterious fashion that he had not said quite the right thing.

“I am very glad to hear that,” replied Dan Anderson, gravely, “I was just sitting here waiting for you to come along.”

“Now, Mr. Anderson,” resumed Ellsworth, “Mr. Barkley, here, is our general counsel for the railroad.  He’s going up to Heart’s Desire with us in a day or so to look into several matters.  We want to take up the question of running our line into the town, if proper arrangements can be made.”

“Take chairs, gentlemen,” said Dan Andersen, motioning to a log that lay near by.  He had already seated Constance upon the corded blanket roll from which he himself had arisen.  “I will get you some breakfast,” he added.

“No, no,” Mr. Ellsworth declined courteously.  “We just came from breakfast.  We were moving around trying to find our engineer’s camp; Grayson, our chief of location, was to have been here before this.  By the way, how did you happen to come down here, after all, Anderson?”

Dan Anderson was conscious that this question drew upon him the gaze of a pair of searching eyes, yet none the less he met the issue.  He glanced at the battered phonograph which leaned dejectedly against a tree.

“As near as I can figure,” said he, “I made this pilgrimage to hear a woman’s voice.”  Saying which he leaned over and deliberately kicked the phonograph down the side of the hill.

“I hope you enjoyed it,” commented Constance, viciously, her cheeks reddening.

“Very much,” replied Dan Anderson, calmly, and he looked squarely at her.