“The one thing needful has been done for me. Colonel Bowran did not wait to be told that I should probably want to disappear. He took it for granted, and got me an appointment as engineer in charge of the work on the Chipeta Ditch down in the San Juan.”
“Is it a good billet?”
“Good pay and a deep grave; and the latter is all I yearn for just now. The colonel says there has not yet been so much as a stake driven on the preliminary survey. If I take it I can drop out of sight and hearing for a year or two at least.”
“You say ‘if.’ Of course, you will take it.”
Brant took time to balance his fruit knife accurately on the edge of his plate before he made answer. “I am not so sure about that,” he said finally. “It will depend very much upon the outcome of a little talk I mean to have with a certain lady.”
“Miss Langford?”
“No; Miss Langford’s mother.”
Hobart whistled softly. “Going to carry it up to the supreme court, are you?”
“Yes, and at once. Then I shall know better what I am going to do.”
“It is none of my business, George, but I am afraid the time isn’t propitious.”