Mr. Spragg once more consulted his watch.  “I’ll see you again,” he said with an effort.

Moffatt struck one fist against the other.  “No, sir—­you won’t!  You’ll only hear from me—­through the Marvell family.  Your news ain’t worth a dollar to Driscoll if he don’t get it to-day.”

He was checked by the sound of steps in the outer office, and Mr. Spragg’s stenographer appeared in the doorway.

“It’s Mr. Marvell,” she announced; and Ralph Marvell, glowing with haste and happiness, stood between the two men, holding out his hand to Mr. Spragg.

“Am I awfully in the way, sir?  Turn me out if I am—­but first let me just say a word about this necklace I’ve ordered for Un—­”

He broke off, made aware by Mr. Spragg’s glance of the presence of Elmer Moffatt, who, with unwonted discretion, had dropped back into the shadow of the door.  Marvell turned on Moffatt a bright gaze full of the instinctive hospitality of youth; but Moffatt looked straight past him at Mr. Spragg.  The latter, as if in response to an imperceptible signal, mechanically pronounced his visitor’s name; and the two young men moved toward each other.

“I beg your pardon most awfully—­am I breaking up an important conference?” Ralph asked as he shook hands.

“Why, no—­I guess we’re pretty nearly through.  I’ll step outside and woo the blonde while you’re talking,” Moffatt rejoined in the same key.

“Thanks so much—­I shan’t take two seconds.”  Ralph broke off to scrutinize him.  “But haven’t we met before?  It seems to me I’ve seen you—­just lately—­”

Moffatt seemed about to answer, but his reply was checked by an abrupt movement on the part of Mr. Spragg.  There was a perceptible pause, during which Moffatt’s bright black glance rested questioningly on Ralph; then he looked again at the older man, and their eyes held each other for a silent moment.

“Why, no—­not as I’m aware of, Mr. Marvell,” Moffatt said, addressing himself amicably to Ralph.  “Better late than never, though—­and I hope to have the pleasure soon again.”

He divided a nod between the two men, and passed into the outer office, where they heard him addressing the stenographer in a strain of exaggerated gallantry.

XI

The July sun enclosed in a ring of fire the ilex grove of a villa in the hills near Siena.

Below, by the roadside, the long yellow house seemed to waver and palpitate in the glare; but steep by steep, behind it, the cool ilex-dusk mounted to the ledge where Ralph Marvell, stretched on his back in the grass, lay gazing up at a black reticulation of branches between which bits of sky gleamed with the hardness and brilliancy of blue enamel.

Up there too the air was thick with heat; but compared with the white fire below it was a dim and tempered warmth, like that of the churches in which he and Undine sometimes took refuge at the height of the torrid days.