She gave him a half-distressed look, then smiled brightly.

“We won’t talk of it any more,” she said—­“ever.  Now do sit down and tell me what you have been doing all this time.  How have you been getting along with your work?”

“All right, except one morning when I overslept.”

“Overslept?  Oh, Kirk!” she said, reproachfully.

“You see, I never got up so early before, except to go duck-hunting, and this is different.  Did you ever try rising at five-thirty—­in the morning, I mean?  You’ve no idea how it feels.  Why, it’s hardly light!  You can’t see to brush your teeth!  I suggested to Runnels that we send No. 2 out at eight-thirty instead of six-thirty—­that’s early enough for anybody—­but he didn’t seem to take kindly to the thought.”

“What did he say when you reported?”

“I didn’t consider it proper to listen to all he said, so I retired gracefully.  From what I did hear, however, I gathered that he was vaguely offended at something.  I tried to explain that I had been out late, but it didn’t go.”

Edith laughed.  “Perhaps I’d better telephone him.”

“Oh no, you needn’t do that.”

“But surely you were called in time?”

“Please don’t.  That’s the first thing Runnels yodelled at me when I showed up.  He’s a nice fellow, but he’s too serious; he lets little things bother him.  He’ll cool off eventually.”

Time passed quickly in such an interchange of pleasant trivialities, and, although Kirk felt that he was making an unconscionably long call, he could not well leave while his hostess seemed bent on detaining him.  It was late when he said good-night, and, after returning to his quarters, with characteristic perversity he proceeded to sit up, smoking cigarette after cigarette, while he tried to set his thoughts in order.  He was grateful to Mrs. Cortlandt, and immensely pleased to learn that the man injured in the affair in New York had not died.  But something must be done about Chiquita.  That was the important thing now.  He wrestled with the problem for a long time in vain.  He was afraid to go to bed for fear of oversleeping again, and decided to stay up until train-time.  But at length drowsiness overcame him, and for the few remaining hours he dreamed lonesomely of an oval face and big, black, velvet eyes.

He did not really miss his rest until the next afternoon, when the heat and the monotonous rumble of the train, together with its restful swaying, sent him off into a delicious doze, from which he was awakened by a brakeman barely in time to escape discovery.  Thereafter he maintained more regular habits, and while no one but the luxury-loving youth himself knew what effort it required to cut short his slumbers in their sweetest part, he never missed his train, and in time the early hours ceased to be a hardship.