“There’s no reason why you should be anxious about me, Mr. King,” she answered, her eyes releasing themselves from his in spite of his effort to hold them.  “I’m doing very well, and—­quite enjoying my work.  How about yourself?  I hardly need to ask.”

“Oh, I’m coming on finely, thank you.  I’ve plunged into my work with all the zest I ever had.  Only one thing has bothered me:  I seemed unable to get out of the habit of watching the mails.  And they have been mighty disappointing.”

“You surely couldn’t expect,” she said, smiling a little, “that once you were well again you should be pampered with frequent letters.”

“I certainly haven’t been pampered.  One letter in all this time—­”

“Book agents haven’t much time for writing letters.  And surely engineers must be busy people.”

He was silent for a minute, studying her.  She seemed, in spite of her youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant.  Again, as in the room at the hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him.  And though she was once more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire—­as well as he could judge—­he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her anywhere where he was known, with no mental apologies for her appearance.  This thought immediately put another into his mind, on which he lost no time in acting.

“This is a great piece of luck,” said he, and went on hurriedly, trying to use diplomacy, which always came hard with him:  “I don’t want it to slip away too soon.  Why couldn’t we spend the rest of the day together?  I’m just on my way back home from a piece of work I’ve been superintending outside this city.  I’ve plenty of time ahead of me, and I’m sure the book business can’t be so pressing that you couldn’t take a few hours off.  If you’ll venture to trust yourself to me we’ll go off into the country somewhere, and have dinner at some pleasant place.  Then we can talk things over—­all sorts of things,” he added quickly, lest this seem too pointed.  “Won’t you—­please?”

She considered an instant, then said frankly:  “Of course that would be delightful, and I can’t think of a real reason why I shouldn’t do it.  What time is it, please?”

“Only three o’clock.  We’ll have time for a splendid drive and I’ll promise to get you back at any hour you say—­after dinner.”

“It must be early.”

“It shall be.  Well, then—­will you wait in the vestibule out here two minutes, please?  I’ll have the car at the door.”

Thus it happened that Aleck, four blocks away, having just comfortably settled to the reading of a popular magazine on mechanics, found himself summarily ejected from his seat, and sent off upon his own resources for a number of hours.

“Take care of yourself, Al, and have a good time out of it if you can,” urged his master, and Aleck observed that King’s eyes were very bright and his manner indicative of some fresh mental stimulus received during the brief time of his absence.  “Have the best sort of a dinner wherever you like.”