“I sent it by mail. I wanted you to know that your friends are proud of you. We know why you resigned. It is easy to read between the lines.” “Thank you,” he said simply. “I knew you would know.” “Even the Sun recognizes that it was because you are too good a man for the place.” “Praise from the Sun has rarely shone my way,” he said, with a touch of irony, for that paper was controlled by the Ridgway interest. “In its approval I am happy.” Her impulsive sympathy for this man whom she so greatly liked would not accept the rebuff imposed by this reticence. She stripped the gauntlet from her hand and offered it in congratulation. He took it in his, a slight flush in his face. “I have done nothing worthy of praise. One cannot ask less of a man than that he remain independent and honest. I couldn’t do that and stay with the Consolidated, or, so it seemed to me. So I resigned. That is all there is to it.” “It is enough. I don’t know another man would have done it, would have had the courage to do it after his feet were set so securely in the way of success. The trouble with Americans is that they want too much success. They want it at too big a price.” “I’m not likely ever to have too much of it,” he laughed sardonically. “Success in life and success in living aren’t the same thing. It is because you have discovered this that you have sacrificed the less for the greater.” She smiled, and added: “I didn’t mean that to sound as preachy as it does.” “I’m afraid you make too much of a small thing. My squeamishness has probably made me the laughing-stock of Mesa.” “If so, that is to the discredit of Mesa,” she insisted stanchly. “But I don’t think so. A great many people who couldn’t have done it themselves will think more of you for having done it.” Another pony, which had been slithering down the steep trail in the midst of a small rock slide, now brought its rider safely to a halt in the road. Virginia introduced them, and Hobart, remembered that he had heard Miss Balfour speak of a young woman whom she had met on the way out, a Miss Laska Lowe, who was coming to Mesa to teach domestic science in the public schools. There was something about the young teacher’s looks that he liked, though she was of a very different type than Virginia. Not at all pretty in any accepted sense, she yet had a charm born of the vital honesty in her. She looked directly at one out of sincere gray eyes, wide-awake and fearless. As it happened, her friend had been telling her about Hobart, and she was interested in him from the first. For she was of that minority which lives not by bread alone, and she felt a glow of pride in the man who could do what the Sun had given this man credit for editorially. They talked at haphazard for a few minutes before the young women cantered away. As Hobart trudged homeward he knew that in the eyes of these two women, at least, he had not been a fool. CHAPTER XIV. A CONSPIRACY