"The president's car is just below—at the basin switch. He wants to have it taken to the front, and I have been trying to dissuade him. Is the track safe for it?"
Frisbie guessed what kind of answer was desired, and stretched the truth a little.
"I should say not. It's something fierce, even for the construction trains."
Miss Alicia's smile was seraphic.
"You two gentlemen needn't tell fibs for the possible effect on me," she said, with charming frankness. "Nothing I could say would carry any weight with Uncle Sidney."
"Stung!" said Frisbie, half to himself; and the two men laughed shamefacedly.
"Will it disarrange things so very much if the Nadia is taken to the 'front'?" asked Miss Adair.
"Well, rather," said Frisbie bluntly. Then he tried to excuse himself and made a mess of it.
"Just why?" she persisted. "Forget the conventions, Mr. Frisbie, and talk to me as you have been talking to Mr. Ford. Is there any good reason, apart from the inconvenience, why our little pleasure party shouldn't see your new railroad? I am appealing to you because Mr. Ford won't tell me the truth."
Ford stood aloof and let Frisbie worry with it alone.