ime
slipped by before Bannon could draw Max aside and grip his hand. Then
they went at the napkins, and as they sat around the table, Hilda and
Bannon, Pete and the waiters, folding them with rapid fingers, Bannon
found opportunity to talk to her in a low voice, during the times when
Pete was whistling, or was chaffing with the waiters. He told her, a few
words at a time, of the new work Mr. MacBride had assigned to him, and
in his enthusiasm he gave her a little idea of what it would mean to
him, this opportunity to build an elevator the like of which had never
been seen in the country before, and which would be watched by engineers
from New York to San Francisco. He told her, too, something about the
work, how it had been discovered that piles could be made of concrete
and driven into the ground with a pile driver, and that neither beams
nor girders--none of the timbers, in fact--were needed in this new
construction. He was nearly through with it, and still he did not notice
the uncertain expression in her eyes. It was not until she asked in a
faltering undertone, "When are you going to begin?" that it came to him.
And then he looked at her so long that Pete began to notice, and she had
to touch his foot with hers under the table to get him to turn away. He
had forgotten all about the vacation and the St. Lawrence trip.

Hilda saw, in her side glances, the gloomy expression that had settled
upon his face; and she recovered her spirits first.

"It's all right," she whispered; "I don't care."

Max came up then, from a talk with James out on the stairway, and for a
few moments there was no chance to reply. But after Bannon had caught
Max's signals to step out of hearing of the others, and before he had
risen, there was a moment when Pete's attention was drawn by one of the
waiters, and he said:--

"Can you go with me--Monday?"

She looked frightened, and the blood rose in her cheeks so that she had
to bend low over her pile of napkins.

"Will you?" He was pushing back his chair.

She did not look up, but her head nodded once with a little jerk.

"And you'll stay for the dinner, won't you--now?"

She nodded once more, and Bannon went to join Max.

Max made two false starts before he could get his words out in the
proper order.

"Say," he finally said; "I thought maybe you wouldn't care if I told
James. He thinks you're all right, you know. And he says, if you don't
care, he'd like to say a little something ab