“And what a house!” supplemented the other, a faded and lined middle-aged wife who had just sent a reassuring and very long wire to a husband in Pittsburgh.

“Very much the chatelaine; grande dame and that sort of thing,” pursued the other.  “One might almost think her English.”

“No.”  The other shook her head positively.  “Old American.  As old and as good as her name.  You wouldn’t flatter her by guessing her to be anything else.  I dare say she would consider the average British aristocrat a little shoddy and loud.”

“So they are when they come over here.  But what on earth is her type doing out here, buried with a one-eyed, half-breed manservant?”

“And a concert grand piano.  Don’t forget that.  She tunes it herself, too.  Did you notice the tools?  A possible romance.  You’ve quite a nose for such things, Sue.  Couldn’t you get anything out of her?”

“It’s much too good a nose to put in the crack of a door,” retorted the pretty woman.  “I shouldn’t care to lay myself open to being snubbed by her.  It might be painful.”

“It probably would.”  The Pittsburgher turned to Banneker with a change of tone, implying that he could not have taken any possible heed of what went before.  “Has Miss Van Arsdale lived here long, do you know?”

The agent looked at her intently for a moment before replying:  “Longer than I have.”  He transferred his gaze to the pretty woman.  “You two were her guests, weren’t you?” he asked.

The visitors glanced at each other, half amused, half aghast.  The tone and implication of the question had been too significant to be misunderstood.  “Well, of all extraordinary—­” began one of them under her breath; and the other said more loudly, “I really beg—­” and then she, too, broke off.

They went out.  “Chatelaine and knightly defender,” commented the younger one in the refuge of the outer office.  “Have we been dumped off a train into the midst of the Middle Ages?  Where do you get station-agents like that?”

“The one at our suburban station chews tobacco and says ‘Marm’ through his nose.”

Banneker emerged, seeking the conductor of the special with a message.

“He is rather a beautiful young thing, isn’t he?” she added.

Returning, he helped them on the train with their hand-luggage.  When the bustle and confusion of dispatching an extra were over, he sat down to think.  But not of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale.  That was an old story, though its chapters were few, and none of them as potentially eventful as this intrusion of Vanneys and female chatterers.