"Come in, gentlemen; come in and be at home,"--this with a hand for
each. "Virginia allowed you wouldn't faveh us, but I assured her she
didn't rightly know men of the world: told her that a picayune
business affair in which we are all acting as corporation proxies
needn't spell out anything like a blood feud between gentlemen."

For another man the informal table gathering might have been easily
prohibitive of confidences _a deux_, even with a Virginia Carteret to
help, but Winton was far above the trammelings of time and place. He
had eyes and ears only for the sweet-faced, low-voiced young woman
beside him, and some of his replies to the others were irrelevant
enough to send a smile around the board.

"How very absent-minded Mr. Winton seems to be this evening!" murmured
Bessie from her niche between Adams and the Reverend Billy at the
farther end of the table. "He isn't quite at his best, is he, Mr.
Adams?"

"No, indeed," said Adams, matching her undertone, "very far from it.
He has been a bit off all day: touch of mountain fever, I'm afraid."

"But he doesn't look at all ill," objected Miss Bessie. "I should say
he is a perfect picture of rude health."

The coffee was served, and Mrs. Carteret was rising. Whereupon Miss
Virginia handed her cup to Adams, and so had him for her companion in
the tete-a-tete chair, leaving Winton to shift for himself.

The shifting process carried him over to the Rajah and the Reverend