A curious thing was that in their endless conversations Don Counsell was never referred to but in the most casual manner. Each had a secret to guard here. Pen kept her secret better than the man did. Riever wished it to be supposed that he had just happened in at Broome's Point on his yacht. That his coming at this time had only the slightest connection with the pursuit of Don Counsell, Pen knew better of course. On every hand she gathered evidence that Riever was the head and front of the pursuit. Riever was the secret source of the hideous clamor raised against the man Pen knew to be innocent. Twenty times a day Riever gave himself away to her love-sharpened eyes--but it was not evidence! Meanwhile they fenced with each other. "You should not encourage Dad in his delusions," said Pen. "You mean about the railway?" said Riever. "I could put it through with a nod of my head if I chose." "But you won't," she said. "How do you know I won't?" "You are so clearly only humoring him." "Good Heavens!" he said in mock dismay. "Do you undertake to read men?" "I don't undertake it," said Pen. "You can't help seeing what you see." "I could put it through," he said again, "if there was sufficient incentive." "Of course," said Pen. And let the matter drop. He was trying to make her beg for the railway. What most fascinated and provoked him in her was his inability to make her ask him for anything, or take anything from him. Everybody else in the world asked him for things one way or another. He presently went on: "That's the trouble with life to a man like me: I have no particular incentive to do anything." Pen refused to recognize his money. "Why haven't you the same incentive as other men?" she demanded to know. "What are men's principal incentives?" he parried. "Well, love, ambition, the desire to excel other men, I suppose." "Yes, one could go far for love," he said with a sidelong look. Pen without looking at him was aware of the look. She thought: "Men are funny! He's trying to make me philander with him in a crude way, and if I did he'd weary of me immediately!" It was Riever's desire to shine in her eyes that frequently betrayed him. She was not impressed by his wealth; very well, he had to find some way of making himself out a remarkable figure. He presently said with a casual air: "How about hate as an incentive?" Pen pricked up her ears. She answered as casually as he: "I always thought of hate as destroying a man instead of nerving him to do things." "Not at all," he said. "Hate will carry a man as far as love--or farther." His feelings got the better of him. He forgot his casual air. "There's more in hate than love!" he went on with glittering eyes. "Men get tired of loving, but never of hating. There's more pleasure in hate because you never can entirely possess your lover, but you can destroy your enemy! ... Do I horrify you?" he asked with a sudden harsh laugh.