“I suppose that’s what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen,” said Mrs. Barker ironically.

“I have never seen her before,” continued Stacy, with business precision, “although I and two other men are guardians of her property, and have saved it from the clutches of her husband.  They told me she was handsome—­and so she is.”

Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his wife for sympathy.  But she was looking studiously another way, and the young husband’s eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon Mrs. Horncastle’s.  She looked away with a bright color.  Whereupon the sanguine Barker—­perfectly convinced that she returned Stacy’s admiration—­was seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future, and saw Stacy happily united to her, and was only recalled to the dinner before him by its end.  Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in her apartments, and took an easy leave.  But he grasped Barker’s hand before parting in quite his old fashion, and said, “Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we’ll talk of Phil Demorest,” and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were to confer the favor he had that morning refused.  But Mrs. Barker, who had overheard, was more dubious.

“You don’t suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his stupid secret, do you?” she said scornfully.

“Perhaps not only about that,” said Barker, glad that she had not demanded the secret.

“Well,” returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, “he might just as well lunch here and talk about her—­and see her, too.”

Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares distant.  His appearance created the same interest that it had produced at the hotel, but with less reserve among his fellow members.

“Have you heard the news?” said a dozen voices.  Stacy had not; he had been dining out.

“That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed the legislature.”

Stacy instantly remembered Barker’s absurd belief in it and his reasons.  He smiled and said carelessly, “Are you quite sure it’s a swindle?”

There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been most outspoken against it.

“But,” said a voice hesitatingly, “you know it goes nowhere and to no purpose.”

“But that does not prevent it, now that it’s a fact, from going anywhere and to some purpose,” said Stacy, turning away.  He passed into the reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly descended by another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and slipping out was a moment later re-entering the hotel.  Here he hastily summoned Barker, who came down, flushed and excited.  Laying his hand on Barker’s arm in his old dominant way, he said:—­

“Don’t delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that Ditch property.”