“I felt somewhat responsible,” replied Tom, and words failed him.  “Here’s Austen Vane,” he added, indicating by a nod of the head the obvious presence of that gentleman.  “You’ll excuse me.  There’s a man here I want to see.”

“What’s the matter with Mr. Gaylord?” Victoria asked.  “He seems so —­queer.”

They were standing apart, alone, Hastings Weare having gone to the stables for the runabout.

“Mr. Gaylord imagines he doesn’t get along with the opposite sex,” Austen replied, with just a shade of constraint.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Victoria; “we got along perfectly the other day when he rescued me from the bushes.  What’s the matter with him?”

Austen laughed, and their eyes met.

“I think he is rather surprised to see you here,” he said.

“And you?” returned Victoria.  “Aren’t you equally out of place?”

He did not care to go into an explanation of Tom’s suspicion in regard to Mr. Crewe.

“My curiosity was too much for me,” he replied, smiling.

“So was mine,” she replied, and suddenly demanded:  “What did you think of Humphrey’s speech?”

Their eyes met.  And despite the attempted seriousness of her tone they joined in an irresistible and spontaneous laughter.  They were again on that plane of mutual understanding and intimacy for which neither could account.

“I have no criticism to make of Mr. Crewe as an orator, at least,” he said.

Then she grew serious again, and regarded him steadfastly.

“And—­what he said?” she asked.

Austen wondered again at the courage she had displayed.  All he had been able to think of in the theatre, while listening to Mr. Crewe’s words of denunciation of the Northeastern Railroads, had been of the effect they might have on Victoria’s feelings, and from time to time he had glanced anxiously at her profile.  And now, looking into her face, questioning, trustful—­he could not even attempt to evade.  He was silent.

“I shouldn’t have asked you that,” she said.  “One reason I came was because—­because I wanted to hear the worst.  You were too considerate to tell me—­all.”

He looked mutely into her eyes, and a great desire arose in him to be able to carry her away from it all.  Many times within the past year, when the troubles and complications of his life had weighed upon him, his thoughts had turned to, that Western country, limited only by the bright horizons where the sun rose and set.  If he could only take her there, or into his own hills, where no man might follow them!  It was a primeval longing, and, being a woman and the object of it, she saw its essential meaning in his face.  For a brief moment they stood as completely alone as on the crest of Sawanec.

“Good night,” she said, in a low voice.

He did not trust himself to speak at once, but went down the steps with her to the curb, where Hastings Weare was waiting in the runabout.