“Hi!” cried Ida. Then she got back into her rôle. “It doesn’t matter,” she said with sad triumph. “I am glad I have told you. As for the future? You have convinced Butte that we are the best of friends. Stay away if you wish unless I give an entertainment where your absence would cause too much comment. You don’t want to marry again, but you may feel yourself as free as air. And one day--when you are worn out, tired of the everlasting struggle in which you moneymakers work harder than the day labourer, with his eight-hour laws and freedom from the terrific responsibilities of money; when you begin to break and want a home, I will make one for you. There is the doorbell. Lord John is coming for lunch. I shall give him his dismissal--once for all.” Gregory stood up and took her hand. He had a vague masculine sense of unfairness somewhere but he could not begin to define it, and he was as deeply impressed as discouraged. “You are a grand woman, Ida,” he said. “This is not an hour that any man forgets. I wish that you might be happy.” “Nature never intended that people on this planet should be happy--only in spots, anyhow. And don’t worry about me. You have put me in the way of getting a great deal out of this old game we call life, and I am grateful to you. Good-bye.” They shook hands and Gregory went out into the hall as the maid was admitting Lord John. This time the men made no pretence at politeness. They merely glared and passed. XXI The Primo vein had been recovered some time since and Ora had traversed the fault drift twice and watched the drilling from the station; not only to assert her rights as mistress of the mine but to experience the sensations she had anticipated. She soon discovered that when a woman is in love, and the issue doubtful, other interests fail to provide sensations. But she went down into the mine every day and roamed through the older workings. She was tormented and restless, but by no means without hope; and this being the case she sometimes wondered why she continued to write to Valdobia as if nothing had occurred to interfere with their tacit engagement. It was her duty to tell him the truth, at once, but she switched off all other currents every Saturday morning and wrote her Roman long gay tantalising letters; being gifted as a scribe, like so many women, she made them notable with amusing and enlightening incidents of mining-camp life. She had not seen Gregory since Monday evening. He had gone suddenly to Butte on the morning following the visit of the geologists, and had telephoned her that he should take the afternoon train to the Capital and no doubt be detained for several days. She had expected that he would telephone or telegraph from Helena; that he would write was too much to expect; she had never seen his handwriting. But he had not recognised her existence.