Demorest looked at his companion’s glowing cheek and kindling eye with a smile.  “A good deal depends upon the side from which you argue.  But, frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in all your phases, I am not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker!  However, I’ll think it over, and find out something more of this from your goddess, who seems to have bewitched you both.  But what does Mistress Kitty say to your admiration?”

Barker’s face clouded, but instantly brightened.  “Oh, they’re the best of friends; they’re quite like us, you know, even to larks they have together.”  He stopped and colored at his slip.  But Demorest, who had noticed his change of expression, was more concerned at the look of half incredulity and half suspicion with which Stacy, who had re-entered the room in time to hear Barker’s speech, was regarding his unconscious younger partner.

“I didn’t know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were such friends,” he said dryly as he sat down again.  But his face presently became so abstracted that Demorest said gayly:—­

“Well, Jim, I’m glad I’m not a Napoleon of Finance!  I couldn’t stand it to have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at any moment, as yours was just now.  What confounded somersault in stocks has put that face on you?”

Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh.  “I’m afraid you’d be none the wiser if I told you.  That was a pony express messenger from New York.  You remember how Barker, that night of the strike, when we were sitting together here, or very near here, proposed that we ought to have a password or a symbol to call us together in case of emergency, for each other’s help?  Well, let us say I have two partners, one in Europe and one in New York.  That was my password.”

“And, I hope, no more serious than ours,” added Demorest.

Stacy laughed his short laugh.  Nevertheless, the conversation dragged again.  The feverish gayety of the early part of the evening was gone, and they seemed to be suffering from the reaction.  They fell into their old attitudes, looking from the firelight to the distant bulk of Black Spur without a word.  The occasional sound of the voices of promenaders on the veranda at last ceased; there was the noise of the shutting of heavy doors below, and Barker rose.

“You’ll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night to little Sta, and see that he’s all right.  I haven’t seen him since I got back.  But”—­to Demorest—­“you’ll see him to-morrow, when Kitty comes.  It is as much as my life is worth to show him before she certifies him as being presentable.”  He paused, and then added:  “Don’t wait up, you fellows, for me; sometimes the little chap won’t let me go.  It’s as if he thought, now Kitty’s away, I was all he had.  But I’ll be up early in the morning and see you.  I dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to each other on business, and you won’t miss me.  So I’ll say