“You are inclined to look upon Brayley as an enemy?” was all that she said, still watching him closely.

“No!” he cried, warmly.  “I sneered at him the other day, I know.  Like the little poppinjay I was I thought myself in the position to poke fun at him.  To-day I got my first true idea of the man’s nature.  To-day I found out—­can you guess what I found out?  That Brayley in many things is just like—­whom, do you suppose?”

“Tell me.”

“Like you!  The discovery was a shock.  It nearly bowled me over.  But it’s the truth!”

“What do you mean?” she asked, plainly puzzled.  “How in the world is Brayley like me?”

“Aside from externals, from refinement, from polish, from all that sort of thing”—­he spoke swiftly—­“his nature is much like yours.  There is the same frankness, the same sincerity, the same heartiness.  There is the same sort of generosity, the same bigness of—­of soul.”  He broke off abruptly, surprised to find himself talking this way to her.  “You must think I’m a fool,” he blurted out, after a second.  “I talk like one.  You have a right to feel offended—­to liken Brayley to you—­”

“Since I believe you mean what you say—­since I think I understand what you mean—­I am not offended!  I am proud!  Yes, proud if I can be like Brayley in some things, some things which count!  If you do nothing beyond making a friend of that man your exile in this Western country of ours will have been worth while.  But you will do something more.  I did not ask you to come to me just to hear what you had to say about your trouble with Brayley.  He told me before you came—­told me that you had licked him, as you both put it, and that it served him right!  That is your business and Brayley’s, and I should keep out of it.  But there was something else—­I wonder if you think me meddlesome, Mr. Conniston?  If I am meddlesome?”

“If we are going to be friends, you and I—­and you promised that you would let me make you my friend—­hadn’t we better drop that word?”

“Then I am going to tell you something.  You are to go to work in the Valley.  Brayley told you that?  Do you guess why—­have you an idea—­why father is sending you over there?”

“I supposed because he is pushing the work—­because he needs all the men there he can get, can spare from the Half Moon.”

“I am going to tell you.  And I am afraid that father would not like it, did he know.  But I know that I am right.  I may not see you again before you go—­I am going into Crawfordsville in the morning for a few days.  What I tell you, you will remember, is in strict confidence—­between friends?”

“In strict confidence,” he repeated, seriously.  “Between friends.”

She leaned slightly forward, speaking swiftly, emphatically, earnestly: 

“You have heard of Bat Truxton?  He is in charge there of all the men, general superintendent of all the work.  You will be put to work under him.  You will be in a position to learn a great deal about the project in its every detail.  Bat Truxton is an engineer, a practical man who knows what he has learned by doing it.  And he is a strong man and very capable.  Then there is Garton—­Tommy Garton they call him.  You will work with him.  He, too, is an engineer, and he, too, knows all there is to know about the work.”