When his quarry stopped, as she did frequently to chat with one or another of the guests, the man with the hawk-like profile and the nervous hunch circled warily, and once or twice seemed about to make the opportunity which was so slow in making itself.  But it was not until the little lady in the claret-colored party-gown had drifted, still with a hand on Gantry’s arm, in among the palm and banana trees of the herbarium that the bird-of-prey person made his swoop.  A moment later Gantry, taking a low-toned command from his companion, was disappearing in the direction of the refreshment-tables, and the lady looked up to say:  “Dear me, Mr. Hathaway, you almost startled me!”

“Did I?” said the lumber-king, rather grimly, if he meant the query to be apologetic.  “I am sorry.  I didn’t mean to; but Mrs. Gordon said I would find you here, and so I took the liberty of following you.  I’m needing a little straightening out, you know, and—­ah—­would you mind letting me talk business with you for a minute or two, Mrs. Blount?”

She drew her gown aside, and made room for him on the carved rustic settee, which was exceedingly uncomfortable to sit in, but which was in perfect harmony with the background of gigantic palmettos.  He nodded gratefully and took the place, and the manner of his sitting down was that of a man who wears evening-clothes only under compulsion.

“Business?” she was saying.  “Certainly not; if you can talk business in such a place as this”—­giving him the coveted permission.

“Perhaps it ain’t what you’d call business—­maybe it’s only politics,” he resumed; then, with the abruptness of one whose dealings have been with men oftener than with women:  “In the first place, I wish you’d tell me what I’ve been doing to get myself into your bad books.”

She laughed easily.  “Who said you had been doing anything, Mr. Hathaway?” she asked.

“The senator,” he answered shortly, adding:  “He told me I’d have to make my peace with you.”

She had developed a sudden interest in the quaint Japanese figures on the ivory sticks of her fan.  “You want something, Mr. Hathaway; what is it?” she inquired.

“I want to be put next in this pigs-in-clover railroad puzzle,” was the blunt statement of the need.  “Our freight contract with the Transcontinental is about to expire, and I’d like to get it renewed on the same terms as before.”

“Well,” she said ingenuously, “why don’t you do it?”

“I can’t,” he blustered.  “Everybody has suddenly grown mysterious or gone crazy—­I don’t know which.  Kittredge, the general superintendent, don’t seem to remember that we ever had any contract, and Gantry is just as bad.  And when I go to the senator he tells me I must make my peace with you.  I’m left out in the cold; I can’t begin to sabe what the senator and these railroad brass-collar men are driving at.  I’ve got something to sell; something that the railroad company needs.  Where the d——­ I mean, where’s the hitch?”