y mention of the possible recrudescence of one David
Kent at a place called Gaston: this merely to note the effect upon an
unresponsive table-mate.

In Penelope's observings there was no effect perceptible. Ormsby said
"Ah?" and asked if she would have more of the salad. But later, in a
contemplative half-hour with his pipe in the smoking-compartment, he let
the scrap of information sink in and take root.

Hitherto Kent had been little more than a name to him; a name he had never
heard on Elinor's lips. But if love be blind in the teens and twenties, it
is more than apt to have a keen gift of insight in the thirties and
beyond. Hence, by the time Ormsby had come to the second filling of his
pipe, he had pieced together bits of half-forgotten gossip about the
Croydon summer, curious little reticences on Elinor's part, vague hints
let fall by Mrs. Brentwood; enough to enable him to chart the rock on
which his love-argosy was drifting, and to name it--David Kent.

Now to a well-knit man of the world--who happens to be a heaven-born
diplomatist into the bargain--to be forewarned is to be doubly armed. At
the end of the half-hour of studious solitude in the smoking-room, Ormsby
had pricked out his course on the chart to a boat's-length; had trimmed
his sails to the minutest starting of a sheet. A glance at his watch and
another at the time-table gave him the length of his respite. Six hours
there were; and a dining-car dinner intervened. Those six hours, and the
dinner, he decided, must win or lose the race.

Picturing for ourselves, if we may, how nine men out of ten would have
given place to panic-ardor, turning a possible victory into a hopeless
rout, let us hold aloof and mark the generalship of the tenth, who chances
to be the heaven-born.

For five of the six precious hours Ormsby merely saw to it that Elinor was
judiciously marooned. Then the dining-car was reopened and the evening
meal was announced. Waiting until a sufficient number of passengers had
gone forward to insure a crowded car, Ormsby let his party fall in with
the tail of the procession, and the inevitable happened. Single seats only
could be had, and Elinor was compelled to dine in solemn silence at a
table with three strangers.

Dinner over, there remained but twenty minutes of the respite; but the
diplomatist kept his head, going back to the sleeping-car with his charges
and dropping into the seat beside Elinor with the light of calm assurance
in