"Why," cries Erma, "I saw you at—" She checks herself suddenly, biting her lips a little, and then goes on: "We've been near each other a whole day, and have not spoken."
"That's a great pity! But we'll make up for lost time, now!" answers Lawrence, gallantly. Then he suggests: "What did you breakfast on?"
"Pies!"
"So did I—our tastes are similar," he laughs, for there is something in the radiant face looking into his that makes him think this snow blockade, privations and all, is the very nicest thing that has come into his life.
A moment after, for he is too earnest for any more light comedy fencing, he comes to the point with masculine abruptness, remarking: "Mr. Powers told you—God bless him!—that I have been in California?"
"Yes."
"I got this little note"—he produces her card with the "I have seen my father. Good-bye" sentence on it—"in Salt Lake City, and presumed you had gone to California with the Livingstons. I was then poor. Four days afterwards, I suddenly found myself astounded and rich. I did not ask how it came—I was too anxious to make use of my money. I thought a tour of 'the Golden State' would please me."
Then he goes on hurriedly and tells her of his wanderings in pursuit of the Livingston party, and his unexpected interview with Ferdie at the Grand Hotel, omitting, however, his journey to Tintic and his rescue of her father, as he doesn't wish to alarm or make Erma think she is under obligation to him.
"Ah!" falters the girl, very pale, and turning her face away from him. "Then you know—I'm the daughter of Tranyon—the Mormon bishop?"
"Yes," he cries; "that is what brought me from California in such a hurry; I wanted to thank you for giving me what I would probably have never got without you—a fortune."