Thus, within a few hours, Hugh Marten, established at the Meurice in Paris, received news which certainly took him aback; for he was a man who seldom brooked a successful interloper. At first he was annoyed, and had it in mind to discharge Page by cablegram. There would be no difficulty in giving "Messrs. Power and MacGonigal" a good deal of legal trouble. To begin with, the lawyers would allege collusion against Page, and an investigation into the purchase of the ranch might reveal loopholes for legal stilettos. Indeed, his alert brain was canvassing all manner of chicanery possible through statutes made and enacted when his wife came in, flushed and breathless. "Hugh," she cried, "I've had heaps of fun this afternoon! Madame de Neuville brought me to the Duchesse de Brasnes' place in that quaint old Faubourg St. Germain, and the Duchesse took such a fancy to me that we are invited for a week-end shoot at her castle, one of the real châteaux on the Loire. You'll come, of course?" "Why, yes, Nancy." "You say yes as though I had asked you to go to the dentist." "I'm a trifle worried, and that's the fact." "What is it? Can I help?" Marten hesitated; though only for an instant. His wife was more adorable than ever since she had discovered what wonders an illimitable purse could achieve in the _boutiques_ of the Rue de la Paix; but there was ever at the back of his mind a suspicion that she looked on her past life as a thing that was dead, and was schooling herself to an artificial gaiety in these glittering surroundings of rank and fashion. "The truth is that I am vexed at something which has happened in Colorado--at Bison," he said. "You have had no ill news of Dad?" she cried, in quick alarm. "No, he's all right. I told you he had sold the ranch. Well, the purchaser is that young engineer, Derry Power." He watched her closely; but trust any woman to mislead a man when she knows that her slightest change of expression will be marked and understood. Mrs. Marten's eyes opened wide, and she had no difficulty in feigning honest surprise. "Derry Power!" she almost gasped. "What in the world does he want with the ranch?" "It seems that he contrived to find the main vein which we lost in the Esperanza mine." "Oh, is that it?" She was indifferent, almost bored. Her mind was in the valley of the Loire. "Yes. That idiot Page was kept in the dark very neatly; so he sold the mill at a scrap price--by my instructions, I admit--and now Power and MacGonigal have everything in their own hands." Nancy's eyebrows arched, and she laughed gleefully. "Just fancy Mac blossoming into a mining magnate!" she cried. "But why should this affair worry you, Hugh?" His hard features softened into a smile--in this instance, a real smile--for he was intensely proud of his pretty wife.