had mentioned the individual to whom they referred.

"Wait until he's feeling tiptop," Mr. Cuthbert advised, "and then bring
him up here in a hurry. I say, I hope you do take the house," he added,
with a boyish seriousness after she had refused his appeal to lunch with
him, "and that you will let me come and see you once in a while."

She lunched alone, in a quiet corner of the dining-room of one of the
large hotels, gazing at intervals absently out of the window. And by the
middle of the afternoon she found herself, quite unexpectedly, in the
antique furniture shop, gazing at the sideboard and a set of
leather-seated Jacobean chairs, and bribing the dealer with a smile to
hold them for a few days until she could decide whether she wished them.
In a similar mood of abstraction she boarded the ferry, but it was not
until the boat had started on its journey that she became aware of a
trim, familiar figure in front of her, silhouetted against the ruffed
blue waters of the river--Trixton Brent's. And presently, as though the
concentration of her thoughts upon his back had summoned him, he turned.

"Where have you been all this time?" she asked. "I haven't seen you for
an age."

"To Seattle."

"To Seattle!" she exclaimed. "What were you doing there?"

"Trying to forget you," he replied promptly, "and incidentally attempting
to obtain control of some properties. Both efforts, I may add, were
unsuccessful."