“I didn’t know it,” said Ford, “though now I recall it, I used often to hear my father speak of Miss Hester Stanbrook.”  Then he was going on to say that trite thing about the smallness of the world when Adair broke in.

“I’d like to know what is keeping Uncle Sidney and Alicia. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

As if his protest had evoked her, a young woman drew the portiere of the vestibule—­a young woman with bright brown hair, eyes like dewy wood violets, and an adorable chin.  Ford stared helplessly, and Adair laughed.

“Shocked, aren’t you?” he jested.  “But you needn’t be alarmed.  I have persuaded my sister not to prosecute in the case of the snatched purse.  Alicia, this is Mr. Stuart Ford, and he desires me to say that he is not often reduced to the necessity of robbing unprotected young women for the sake of scraping an acquaintance.”

Ford lost sight of the Pacific Southwestern exigencies for the moment, and surely the lapse was pardonable.  If the truth must be told, this young woman, who had been discovered and lost in the same unforgetable evening, had stirred the neglected pool of sentiment in him to its profoundest depths, and thoughts of her had been dividing time pretty evenly with some parts of the strenuous business affair.  Indeed, the hopelessness of any effort toward rediscovering her had been one of his reasons for hurrying away from New York.  He knew himself—­a little—­and that quality of unreasoning persistence which other people called his strong point.  The search he had been half-minded to make once begun—­

“I hope you haven’t forgotten me so soon, Mr. Ford,” she was saying; and he recovered himself with a start.

“Forgotten you?  No, indeed!”—­this with almost lover-like emphasis.  “I—­I think I am just a trifle aghast at my good luck in finding you again.  It seemed so utterly hopeless, you know.  Don’t you think—­”

But now the president had stalked in, and his high querulous voice was marshaling the party breakfastward.  Ford manoeuvered skilfully in the pairing off, and so succeeded in securing Miss Adair for a companion on the short walk across to the Grand Pacific.

“You were about to ask me something when Uncle Sidney interrupted you,” she prompted, when they were clear of the throng in the station vestibule.

“Yes; I was going to ask if you don’t think it was unnecessarily cruel to send me that note of thanks unsigned.”

“Cruel?” she echoed, and her laugh was so exactly a replica of her brother’s that Ford wondered why the reminiscent arrow had not gone at once to its mark.  “How absurd!  What possible difference could it make?”

“It made a lot of difference to me,” said Ford, refusing to be brushed aside.  “How did you expect I was ever going to be able to find you again, without even your name as a clue?”

She glanced up at him with unfeigned interest.  The men of her world were not altogether unappreciative; neither were they so primitively straightforward as this young industry captain out of the West.