“I am visiting my sister in Denver.  We just came here for the Frontier Days,” said Connie primly.

“There is another Frontier Week at Sterling,” he said eagerly.  “A fine one, better than this.  It isn’t far over there.  You would get more material at Sterling, I think.  Can’t you go on up?”

“I have been away from Chicago four weeks now,” said Connie.  “In exactly two weeks I must be at my desk again.”

“Chicago is not a healthy town,” he said, in a voice that would have done credit to his father, the medical man.  “Very unhealthy.  It is not literary either.  Out west is the place for literature.  All the great writers come west.  Western stories are the big sellers.  There’s Ralph Connor, and Rex Beach, and Jack London and—­and—­”

“But I am not a great writer,” Connie interrupted modestly.  “I am just a common little filler-in in the ranks of a publishing house.  I’m only a beginner.”

“That is because you stick to Chicago,” he said eloquently.  “You come out here, out in the open, where things are wide and free, and you can see a thousand miles at one stretch.  You come out here, and you’ll be as great as any of ’em,—­greater!”

The loud clamor of the dinner bell interrupted his impassioned outburst and he relapsed into stricken silence.

“Well, we must go to dinner before the supply runs out,” said David, rising slowly.  “Come along, Julia.  We are glad to have met you, Mr. Ingram.”  He held out his thin, blue-veined hand.  “We’ll see you again.”

Prince looked hopelessly at Connie’s back, for her face was already turned toward the dining-room.  How cold and infinitely distant that tall, straight, tailored back appeared.

“Ask him to eat with us,” Connie hissed, out of one corner of her lip, in David’s direction.

David hesitated, looking at her doubtfully.  Connie nudged him with emphasis.

Well, what could David do?  He might wash his hands of the whole irregular business, and he did.  Connie was a writer, she must have material, but in his opinion Connie was too young to be literary.  She should have been older, or uglier, or married.  Literature is not safe for the young and charming.  Connie nudged him again.  Plainly if he did not do as she said, she was going to do it herself.

David turned to the brown-faced, sad-eyed son of the mountain ranges, and said: 

“Come along and have dinner with us, won’t you?”

Carol pursed up her lips warningly, but Prince Ingram, in his eagerness, nearly picked David up bodily in his hurry to get the little party settled before some one spoiled it all.

He wanted to handle Connie’s chair for her, he knew just how it was done.  But suppose he pushed her clear under the table, or jerked it entirely from under her, or did something worse than either?  A girl like Connie ought to have those things done for her.  Well, he would let it go this time.  So he looked after Julia, and settled her so comfortably, and was so assiduously attentive to her that he quite won her heart, and before the meal was over she said he might come and live with them and be her grandpa, if he wanted.