"Some of him does and some of him doesn't," said Mrs. Dibbott sagely.
"How much did he make?" Belding was wiser with other people's money than with his own.
"They say twenty-five thousand and," she added enigmatically, "I'm sorry for his wife."
The engineer laughed, said good-by and turned toward the Worden house.
At the sound of his step in the garden Elsie looked up, a provocative smile on her face. She was so dainty, so desirable, that he felt a swift hunger throbbing even to his finger tips. She made room for him on the bench.
"I'm for Mother Earth." He stretched himself at her feet. "Where have you been lately, we've missed you at the works."
"I've just got back, been away for two weeks. Are you still very busy?"
He nodded, but business was not what he wanted to talk about. It was more than two years now since they first met and he had a feeling that all that time he had been an open book to her bright eyes.
"Don't let us talk business," he said a little unsteadily.
She swung her large straw hat by its silk ribbons. "You shall choose your own subject."