“It is not impossible that I never thought of your finding me again,” she said, and only the tone saved it from being a small slap in the face.

Ford took the rebuff as a part of the day’s work.

“Perhaps you didn’t,” he admitted.  “But I mean to go on hoping that you did.”

“The idea!” she scoffed; but this time she blunted the keen edge of the rebuke by adding:  “I thought, perhaps, we might meet again, sometime.  You see, we are all stock-holders in the Pacific Southwestern; my brother, Aunt Hetty and I; and Uncle Sidney had shown us a letter—­it was from Mr. North, I think—­saying that you were likely to come to New York with some kind of a plan of reorganization.  So when you gave me your card, I knew at once who you were.”

Ford made an immediate mental note of the bit of information implicating Mr. North, but did not allow himself to be diverted by the business affair.

“Yes, I know; but that didn’t help me a little bit,” he protested, wishing that the distance to the hotel were twice as far.

“That was just because it happened so; you ran away before my brother had a chance to offer you any hospitality,” she explained.  Then, before he could say any more straightforward things:  “Tell me, Mr. Ford; are you really going to find something to interest brother?—­something that will keep him actually and enthusiastically busy for more than a few days at a time?”

Ford laughed.  “I fancy he hasn’t been bored for the lack of work since I left New York, has he?”

“No; and it has made such a difference!  Won’t you please try and keep him going?”

“You may rest assured that I shall do what I can.  But you see he has quit already.”

“By coming to Chicago with us?  Oh, no, indeed; you are quite mistaken.  He is here to help you to—­to ‘minimize’ Uncle Sidney; I think that is the word he used.  He was afraid you had been finding Uncle Sidney rather difficult.  Have you?”

“I have, for a fact,” said Ford, out of the depths of sincerity.  And, again out of a full heart:  “Your brother is a brick, Miss Adair.”

“Isn’t he?” and she laughed in sheer good comradeship.  “If you can only manage to make him rise to his capabilities—­”

“He’ll never be able to live the simple life for a single waking hour,” said the engineer, finishing the sentence for her.

“Oh, but that is a mistake!” she objected.  “The very first requirement is work; plenty of work of the kind one can do best.”

The short walk to the hotel, where Kenneth was waiting to go to breakfast with the president’s party, came to an end, and the social amenities died of inanition.  For one thing, President Colbrith insisted upon learning the minutest ins and outs of the business matter, making the table-talk his vehicle; and for another, Miss Adair’s place was on the opposite side of the table, and two removes from Ford’s.  Time and again the young engineer tried to side-track business in the interests of something a little less banal to the two women; but the president was implacable and refused to be pulled out of the narrow rut of details; was still running monotonously and raspingly in it when Kenneth glanced at his watch and suggested that the time for action was come.