"You are coming, Dick; that settles it." She smiled confidently. "Huh! as if I didn't know you! You are the same dear, old chap, ridden to death with silly fancies. Now, I'm going to run back and speak to Mary. I forgot something. She is all right. She won't talk even if she recognized you, which is doubtful, for she is a stranger here." Turning, he walked back toward the city. Already he was in a different mood; his step was more active; all of his senses were alert; his blood surged through his veins as if propelled by a new force. He saw some vacant lots across the street advertised for sale by a real estate-agent, and found himself calculating on the city's prospective growth in that direction. It might be worth his while to inquire the price, for he had made money in transactions of that sort. Returning to the bank, he found that the activity of the clerks and typewriters did not jar on him as it had been doing of late. He paused at Saunders's desk and made a cheerful and oddly self-confident inquiry as to the disposition of a certain customer's account, surprising his partner by his altered manner. In his office, smoking a good cigar, he found a new interest in the letters and documents left there for his consideration. After all, life _was_ a game. Even the early red men had their sport. Modern routine work without diversion was a treadmill, prisonlike existence. Delbridge was the happy medium. The jovial speculator had never heard of such a fine-spun thing as a conscience. What if Irene and Buckton were having their fun; could he not also enjoy himself? If the worst came, surely a man of the world, a stoical thoroughbred, who was willing to give and take a matrimonial joke would appear less ridiculous in the public eye than an overgrown crier over spilt milk. How queer that he had waited for Marie Winship to open his eyes to such a patent fact! All the remainder of the day he was buoyed up by this impulse. A man came in to see him about buying a new automobile, and he made an appointment with him to test the machine the next morning. It was said to be better and higher-priced than Buckton's. He might buy it. He might openly ride out with Marie. That would be taking the bull by the horns in earnest. He smiled as he thought that many would think his relations with Marie had never been broken, but had only been adroitly concealed out of respect for a wife who no longer deserved such delicate consideration. The town would talk; let them--let them! Its tongue was already active on one side of the matter; it should be fed with a morsel or two from the other. Richard Mostyn was himself again. CHAPTER VI