“Is that really the reason, or do you think the work will be easier?”

Kirk stirred uncomfortably.  “Oh, I’m not trying to dodge anything,” he maintained.  “On the contrary, the most amazing thing has happened—­something I can’t quite understand.  I—­I really want to work.  Funny, isn’t it?  I didn’t know people ever got that way, but—­I’d like to help build this Canal.”

“But a conductor!  Why, you’re a gentleman.”

“My dad was a brakeman.”

“Don’t be foolish.  Runnels talks too much.  He’ll offer you something better than that.”

“The high-salaried positions are well filled now, and most of the fellows are married.”

“A new position will be created.”

But Kirk was obdurate.  “I’d prefer to start in as confidential adviser to the Canal Commission, of course, but I’d be a ‘frost,’ and my father would say ‘I told you so.’  I must make good for his sake, even if it’s only counting cars or licking postage-stamps.  Besides, it isn’t exactly the square thing to take money for work that somebody else does for you.  When a man tried for the Yale team he had to play football, no matter who his people were.  If some capable chap were displaced to put in an incapable fellow like me, he’d be sore, and so would his friends; then I’d have to lick them.  We’d have a fine scrap, because I couldn’t stand being pointed out as a dub.  No, I’ll go in through the gate and pay my admission.”

“Do you realize that you can’t live at the Tivoli?”

“I hadn’t thought about that, but I’ll live where the other fellows do.”

“No more good dinners, no drives and little parties like this.”

“Oh, now, you won’t cut me out just because I pull bell-cords and you pull diplomatic wires?  Remember one of our champion pugilists was once a sailor.”

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed with a touch of annoyance.

“It is utterly ridiculous, and I can’t believe you are in earnest.”

“I am, though.  If I learn to be a good conductor, I’d like to step up.  I’m young.  I can’t go back to New York; there’s plenty of time for promotion.”

“Oh, you’ll have every chance,” she declared.  “But I think a few weeks in cap and buttons will cure you of this quixotic sentiment.  Meanwhile I must admit it is refreshing.”  She stared unseeingly at the street lights for a moment, then broke out as a new thought occurred to her:  “But see here, Kirk, don’t the collectors live in Colon?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, startled and flattered by her first use of his given name.

“I’ll look it up to-morrow.  You know I—­Mr. Cortlandt and I will be in Panama, and I prefer to have you here.  You see, we can do more for you.”  A little later she broke into a low laugh.

“It seems strange to go driving with a conductor.”

As they reclined against the padded seat of their coach, lulled by the strains of music that came to them across the crowded Plaza and argued their first difference, it struck the young man that Edith Cortlandt was surprisingly warm and human for a woman of ice.  He fully felt her superiority, yet he almost forgot it in the sense of cordial companionship she gave him.