; HIS
hydrographic survey of the creek that had made Harcourt's plan of
widening the channel to commerce practicable and profitable. This he
could not help but know. But that it was chiefly owing to his own clear,
cool, far-seeing, but never visionary, scientific observation,--his
own accurate analysis, unprejudiced by even a savant's enthusiasm, and
uninfluenced by any personal desire or greed of gain,--that Tasajara
City had risen from the stagnant tules, was a speculation that had never
occurred to him. There was a much more uneasy consciousness of what he
had done in Mr. Harcourt's face a few moments later, when his visitor's
name was announced, and it is to be feared that if that name had been
less widely honored and respected than it was, no merely grateful
recollection of it would have procured Grant an audience. As it was,
it was with a frown and a touch of his old impatient asperity that he
stepped to the threshold of an adjoining room and called, "Clemmy!"

Clementina appeared at the door.

"There's that man Grant in the parlor. What brings HIM here, I wonder?
Who does he come to see?"

"Who did he ask for?"

"Me,--but that don't mean anything."

"Perhaps he wants to see you on some business."

"No. That isn't his high-toned style. He makes other people go to him
for that," he said bitterly. "Anyhow--don't you think it's mighty queer
his coming here after his friend--for it was he who introduced Rice
to us--had behaved so to your sister, and caused all this divorce and
scandal?"

"Perhaps he may know nothing about it; he and Rice separated long ago,
even before Grant became so famous. We never saw much of him, you know,
after we came here. Suppose you leave him to ME. I'll see him."

Mr. Harcourt reflected. "Didn't he used to be rather attentive to
Phemie?"

Clementina shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "I dare say--but I don't
think that NOW"--

"Who said anything about NOW?" retorted her father, with a return of his
old abruptness. After a pause he said: "I'll go down and see him first,
and then send for you. You can keep him for the opening and dinner, if
you like."

Meantime Lawrence Grant, serenely unsuspicious of these domestic
confidences, had been shown into the parlor--a large room furnished in
the same style as the drawing-room of the hotel he had just quitted.
He had ample time to note that it was that wonderful Second Empire
furniture which he remembered that the early San Francisco