gressed. "By the way, Elice," he
said, "can't we have some of those cookies of yours? I've dreamed of
them, along with other things, until--Do, please, if they're in stock. I
mean it. Still down at Phelps's are you?" he asked the other directly
when the girl had gone.

"No." A long pause wherein Armstrong did not look up. "I--left there a
couple of weeks ago. I'm not doing anything in particular just now."

The cookies, far-famed and seemingly always available, were on hand, and
Roberts relapsed into silence. From her own seat behind them Elice
Gleason sat looking at the two men, precisely as she had looked that
first evening they had called in company.

"That's a new motor out there, isn't it?" she asked at last.

"Yes." Roberts roused and shook the scattered crumbs off his khaki coat.
"It came while I was away. This is the first try-out."

Miss Gleason was examining the big machine with a critical eye. "This is
a six-cylinder, I judge. What's become of the old four, Old--"

"Reliable?"

"Yes."

"Disgraced its name." Roberts smiled peculiarly. "I took it along with me
when I went West. It's scrapped out there on the Nevada desert, God
knows where, thirty miles from nowhere. I fancy the vultures are
wondering right now what in the world it is."

"You had an accident?"

"Rather." Roberts got to his feet deliberately. "Some other time I'll
tell you the story, if you wish. It would take too long now, and it's
entirely too hot here." He looked at his two listeners impartially.
"Besides, there's other business more urgent. I have a curiosity to see
how quickly the six-eighty out there will eat up thirty miles. It's
guaranteed to do it in twenty-five minutes. Won't you come along?

"I'll take the rumble and you two sit forward," he added as they
hesitated. "You can drive as well as I can, Elice."

"Not to-day; some other time," declined Armstrong, hurriedly. He started
up to avoid a change of purpose, and to cover any seeming precipitancy
lit a cigarette with deliberation. "I was going, really, anyway."

Roberts did not insist, nor did he dissimulate.

"As you wish. I meant it or I shouldn't have made the suggestion. Better
glue on your hair if you accept, Elice. I have a presentiment that I'll
let her out to-day." He started down the walk. "I'm ready when you are."

Behind him the man and the girl exchanged one look.

"Come, Steve," said the girl in a low voice. "I ask it."

"No," Armstrong's thin face fo