As their hands fell apart, she glanced swiftly at Dick; for she had learned much, in their dozen years together, of his flashes of observance, and had come to stand in awe of his almost uncanny powers of guessing facts from nuances, and of linking nuances into conclusions often startling in their thoroughness and correctness. But Dick, his shoulder toward her, laughing over some quip of Hancock, was just turning his laughter-crinkled eyes toward her as he started to accompany Graham. No, was her thought; surely Dick had seen nothing of the secret little that had been exchanged between them. It had been very little, very quick--a light in the eyes, a muscular quiver of the fingers, and no lingering. How could Dick have seen or sensed? Their eyes had certainly been hidden from Dick, likewise their clasped hands, for Graham's back had been toward him. Just the same, she wished she had not made that swift glance at Dick. She was conscious of a feeling of guilt, and the thought of it hurt her as she watched the two big men, of a size and blondness, go down the room side by side. Of what had she been guilty? she asked herself. Why should she have anything to hide? Yet she was honest enough to face the fact and accept, without quibble, that she had something to hide. And her cheeks burned at the thought that she was being drifted into deception. "I won't be but a couple of days," Graham was saying as he shook hands with Dick at the car. Dick saw the square, straight look of his eyes, and recognized the firmness and heartiness of his gripping hand. Graham half began to say something, then did not; and Dick knew he had changed his mind when he said: "I think, when I get back, that I'll have to pack." "But the book," Dick protested, inwardly cursing himself for the leap of joy which had been his at the other's words. "That's just why," Graham answered. "I've got to get it finished. It doesn't seem I can work like you do. The ranch is too alluring. I can't get down to the book. I sit over it, and sit over it, but the confounded meadowlarks keep echoing in my ears, and I begin to see the fields, and the redwood canyons, and Selim. And after I waste an hour, I give up and ring for Selim. And if it isn't that, it's any one of a thousand other enchantments." He put his foot on the running-board of the pulsing car and said, "Well, so long, old man." "Come back and make a stab at it," urged Dick. "If necessary, we'll frame up a respectable daily grind, and I'll lock you in every morning until you've done it. And if you don't do your work all day, all day you'll stay locked in. I'll make you work.--Got cigarettes?--matches?" "Right O." "Let her go, Saunders," Dick ordered the chauffeur; and the car seemed to leap out into the darkness from the brilliantly lighted porte cochére.