“You are going away to look for a job?” Oswald asked. “As it happens, I don’t have to look for one. I leave for Chicago on the eleven-fifteen to-night, and my job is waiting for me.” “Fine!” was the friendly approval. “Is it a secret?” “Not at all. I’m going to work for the Grillage Engineering Company; an assistant engineer’s billet on a bridge construction job up in Wisconsin. There is a reason why I shouldn’t take the job, and a still stronger reason why I can’t refuse.” “That’s capital!” said Oswald, ignoring the qualifying part of the announcement. “You are lucky--or I guess you are. They say Mr. Eben Grillage can dig his profit out of the shrewdest contract that was ever drawn and never turn a hair. But as an engineer in the field, you won’t have anything to do with that part of it.” David glanced up quickly with a little frown coming and going between the honest eyes. “Again I’ll have to ask you to break it off, Bert. Mr. Grillage is my father’s friend.” “Of course he is; I forgot for the moment,” was the placative reply. “I shouldn’t have repeated the gossip--which is only gossip, after all. I suppose you remember his daughter Vinnie, as a little girl, don’t you?” “Very well, indeed,” said David, with his eyes on his plate. “She has grown up to be a raving, tearing, heart-smashing beauty,” the lawyer went on, entirely unmindful of the sudden change in his table-mate. “I met her in Indianapolis last summer when I was there on a business trip. She was stopping with friends, and she gave me exactly five minutes by the watch--which was all the time she could spare; all the time a dozen other fellows would let her spare. Somebody told me she was, or is, going to marry an English title.” “That is gossip, too,” said David, still looking down. “I suppose so. You can hear all sorts of things if you’ll only hold your ears open. Finished your dinner? If you have, let’s go and smoke.” At this, David Vallory came to life again. “No; I can’t take the time, Bert. I must go out home and pack my trunk. And I’m going to ask a favor of you. Will you be at the train to see me off.” “Surest thing in the world,” said the young lawyer; and after David had gone he sauntered out to the office-lobby and bought a cigar with thoughtful deliberation, recalling, now that he had time to do so, David’s cryptic remark about the reasons--still unexplained--for and against his new employment. V Gloriana David Vallory had not been strictly truthful in pleading the journey preparations as an excuse for leaving Oswald at the dinner-table. It still wanted three hours of train time; and, as a matter of fact, his trunk, packed in Florida for the hurried flight northward, had not since been unpacked. But on no account would he have given Oswald the real reason for his early defection.