The handsome shoulders twitched in the barest hint of indifference. "As I have said, I am not in Bart Macauley's employ--nor in Mr. Watrous Dunham's. Neither am I the judge and jury to put you in the prisoner's box and try you. I suppose you knew what you were doing, and why you did it. But I do think you might have written me a line, Montague. That would have been the least you could have done." The serving of the salad course broke in just here, and for some time afterward the talk was not resumed. Miss Richlander was apparently enjoying her dinner. Smith was not enjoying his, but he ate as a troubled man often will; mechanically and as a matter of routine. It was not until the dessert had been served that the young woman took up the thread of the conversation precisely as if it had never been dropped. "I think you know that you have no reason to be afraid of me, Montague; but I can't say as much for father. He will be back in a few days, and when he comes it will be prudent for you to vanish. That is a future, however." Smith's laugh was brittle. "We'll leave it a future, if you like. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'" "Oh; so you class me as an evil, do you?" "No; you know I didn't mean that; I merely mean that it's no use crossing the bridges before we come to them. I've been living from day to day so long now, that I am becoming hardened to it." Again there was a pause, and again it was Miss Richlander who broke it. "You don't want to go back to Lawrenceville?" she suggested. "Hardly--in the circumstances." "What will you do?--go away from Brewster and stay until father has finished buying his mine?" "No; I can't very well go away--for business reasons." The slow smile was dimpling again at the corners of the perfect mouth. "You are going to need a little help, Montague--my help--aren't you? It occurs to me that you can well afford to show me some little friendly attention while I am Robinson-Crusoed here waiting for father to come back." "Let me understand," he broke in, frowning across the table at her. "You are willing to ignore what has happened--to that extent? You are not forgetting that in the eyes of the law I am a criminal?" She made a faint little gesture of impatience. "Why do you persist in dragging that in? I am not supposed to know anything about your business affairs, with Watrous Dunham or anybody else. Besides, no one knows me here, and no one cares. Besides, again, I am a stranger in a strange city and we are--or we used to be--old friends." Her half-cynical tone made him frown again, thoughtfully, this time. "Women are curious creatures," he commented. "I used to think I knew a little something about them, but I guess it was a mistake. What do you want me to do?" "Oh, anything you like; anything that will keep me from being bored to death." Smith laid his napkin aside and glanced at his watch.