They met at dinner, the lady being indisposed during the day as a result of their strenuous trip, but she came down now, floating gracefully in soft draperies and Rimrock knew why he had built those broad stairs. He had thought, in jail, that he was building them for Mary, but they were for Mrs. Hardesty after all. She was a queen no less in her filmy gown than in the tiger-skin cloak that she wore, and Rimrock dared to use the same compliment on her that he had coined for Mary Fortune. They dined together in a secluded corner on the best that the chef could produce--and for a Chinaman, he accomplished miracles--but Rimrock said nothing of his troubles. The talk was wholly of gay, distant New York, and of the conflict that was forming there. For a woman of society, compelled by her widowhood to manage her own affairs, it was wonderful to Rimrock how much she knew of the intricacies of the stock market and of the Exchange. There was not a financier or a broker of note that she did not know by name, and the complex ways by which they achieved their ends were an open book to her. Even Whitney H. Stoddard was known to her personally--the shrewdest intriguer of them all--and yet he, so she said, had a human side to him and let her in on occasional deals. He had been a close friend of her husband, in their boyhood, and that probably accounted for the fact; otherwise he would never have sold her that Tecolote. "But he's got a string on it," suggested Rimrock shrewdly; but she only drooped her eyelashes and smiled. "I never carry gossip between rivals," she said. "They might fly at each other's throats. You don't like Mr. Stoddard. Very well, he doesn't like you. He thinks you're flighty and extravagant. But is that any reason why we shouldn't be friends--or why my stock isn't perfectly good?" "Don't you think it!" answered Rimrock. "Any time you want to sell it----" "A-ah! At it again!" she chided laughingly. "How like fighting animals men are. If I'd toss that stock, like a bit of raw meat, in the midst of you copper-mad men! But I won't, never fear. In the fight that would follow I might lose some highly valued friend." From the droop of her lashes Rimrock was left to guess who that friend might be and, not being quick at woman logic, he smiled and thought of Stoddard. They sat late at their table and, to keep him at ease, Mrs. Hardesty joined him in a cigarette. It was a habit she had learned when Mr. Hardesty was living; although now, of course, every one smoked. Then, back at last in the shadowy alcove--which was suddenly vacated by the Jepsons--they settled down on the Turkish divan and invited their souls with smoke. It rose up lazily as the talk drifted on and then Rimrock jumped abruptly to his problem.