At the garden party there was little opportunity for talk and he had eagerly accepted the judge's suggestion to spend the evening with them. Now Elsie was beside him at the water's edge.
"I was up at the works again, with father, the other day. Aren't they wonderful?" she said, after a long pause.
"Perhaps—I don't often think of them that way, though."
"What a difference in two years!"
"I suppose so." Belding was tired and he didn't want to talk shop.
"I met Mr. Clark again, and he was charming."
"Was he?"
She laughed. "I gathered from you at the garden party that he was a woman hater."
"Did I say that?"
"Not exactly, but that he didn't care for women, he was too busy."