"What! that serious, elegant Bolton that you brought to call on us the other night! We all liked him so much! What can be the matter there? Why, I think he's superb, and she's just the match for him. What broke it off?" "You know I told you she never made me her confidant." "Nor he, either?" "Well," said I, feeling myself cornered, "I throw myself on your mercy. It's another man's secret, and I ought not to tell you, but if you ask me I certainly shall." "Right or wrong?" "Yes, fair Eve, just as Adam ate the apple, so beware!" "I'm just dying to know, but if you really ought not to tell me I won't tease for it; but I tell you what it is, Harry, if I were you I should bring them together." "Would you dare take the responsibility of bringing any two together?" "I suppose I should. I am a daring young woman." "I have not your courage," said I, "but if it will do you any good to know, Bolton is in a fair way to renew the acquaintance, though he meant not to do it." "You can tell me how that happened, I suppose?" "Yes, that is at your service. Simply, the meeting was effected as some others of fateful results have been,--in a New York street-car." "Aha!" she said, laughing. "Yes; he was traveling up Sixth Avenue the other night when a drunken conductor was very rude to two ladies. Bolton interfered, made the man behave himself, waited on the ladies across the street to their door as somebody else once did,--when, behold! a veil is raised, the light of the lamp flashes, and one says 'Mr. Bolton!' and the other 'Miss Simmons!' and the romance is opened." "How perfectly charming! Of course he'll call and see her. He _must_, you know." "That has proved the case in my experience." "And all the rest will follow. They are made for each other. Poor Ida, she won't have Caroline to go to Paris with her!" "No? I think she will. In fact I think it would be the best thing Caroline could do." "You do! You don't want them to be married?" "I don't know. I wouldn't say--in fact it's a case I wouldn't for the world decide." "Oh, heavens! Here's a mystery, an obstacle, an unknown horror, and you can't tell me what it is, and I must not ask. Why, this is perfectly dreadful! It isn't anything against Bolton?" "Bolton is the man I most love, most respect, most revere," I said. "What can it be then?" "Suppose we leave it to fate and the future," said I. CHAPTER XLI. THE EXPLOSION. "Hal! it's too confounded bad!" said Jim Fellows, bursting into my room; "your apple cart's upset for good. The Van Arsdels are blown to thunder. The old one has failed for a million. Gone to smash on that Lightning Railroad, and there you all are! Hang it all, I'm sorry now!" And to say the truth Jim's face did wear an air of as much concern as his features were capable of. "Seems to me," he added, "you take it coolly."