"We never should have beaten it if the old Scotchman hadn't taken a hand," was Prime's comment. "He saved us at least a full day."
Grider was edging toward the door. "I guess you don't need me any more just now," he offered. "I'm due to go and thank the good-natured lumber king who lent me the Sprite. By and by, after the dust has settled a bit, I'll come around and show you where Mr. Shellaby holds forth."
"One minute, Mr. Grider," Lucetta interposed hastily. "We can't let you go without asking your forgiveness for the way in which we have been vilifying you for a whole month, and for what we both said to you last night. I must speak for myself, at least, and——"
"Don't," said Grider, laughing again. "It's all in the day's work. As it happened, I wasn't the goat this time, but that isn't saying that I mightn't have done something quite as uncivilized if you had given me a chance. You two gave me one of the few perfect moments of a rather uneventful life last night when you made me understand that you were giving me credit for the whole thing—as a joke! I only wish I could invent one half as good. And that reminds me, Don; can you—er—do you think you'll be able to put a real woman into the next story?"
For some few minutes after the barbarian had ducked and disappeared a stiff little silence fell upon the two he had left behind. In writing about it Prime would have called it an interregnum of readjustment. He had gone to a window to stare aimlessly down into the busy street, and Lucetta was sitting with her chin in her cupped palms and her eyes fixed upon the rather garish pattern of the paper on the opposite wall. After a time Prime pulled himself together and went back to her.
"It is all changed, isn't it?" he said, in a rather flat voice. "Everything is changed. You are no longer a teacher, working for your living. You are an heiress, with a snug little fortune in your own right."
She looked up at him with the bright little smile which had been brought over intact from the days of the banished conventions.
"Whatever you say I am, you are," she retorted cheerfully. "Only I can't quite believe it yet—about the money, you know."
"You'd better," he returned gloomily. "Besides, it is just what you said you wanted—neither too little nor too much: one hundred thousand at a good, safe six per cent will give you an income of six thousand a year. You can travel on that for the remainder of your natural life."
"Easily," she rejoined. "And you can write the leisurely book and marry the girl. Perhaps you will be doing both while I am getting ready to go on my travels. You won't insist upon going back to Ohio with me now, will you? You—you ought to go straight to the girl, don't you think?"