"I may want to. You may shape it to that end."
"I'll stand by my figures," said Frazee. "It will give me my little chance to get back at the governor. I had it assessed as unimproved suburban property at so much the lot, but he made a kick to the board of equalization and got it put in as unimproved farm land at fifty dollars an acre." Then, looking at his watch: "We'd better be getting back, if you have to catch the Accommodation. Won't you stay over and visit with us?"
"I can't, this time; much obliged," said Kent; and they drove to the Building and Loan office where the joint letter of appraisal was written and signed.
Kent caught his train with something to spare, and was back at the capital in good time to keep a dinner engagement at Miss Van Brock's. He had understood that Ormsby would be the only other guest. But Portia had a little surprise in store for him. Loring had dropped in, unannounced, from the East; and Portia, having first ascertained that Mrs. Brentwood's asthma was prohibitive of late dinings-out, had instructed Ormsby to bring Elinor and Penelope.
Kent had been saving the results of his deep-sea divings in the oil-field investigation to spread them out before Miss Van Brock and Ormsby "in committee," but he put a padlock on his lips when he saw the others.
Portia gave him Elinor to take out, and he would have rejoiced brazenly if the table talk, from the bouillon to the ices, had not been persistently general, turning most naturally upon the Universal Oil Company's successful coup in the Belmount field. Kent kept out of it as much as he could, striving manfully to monopolize Elinor for his own especial behoof; but finally Portia laid her commands upon him.
"You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with Miss Brentwood any longer," she said dictatorially. "You know more about the unpublished part of this Belmount conspiracy than any one else excepting the conspirators themselves, and you are to tell us all about it."
Kent looked up rather helplessly.
"Really, I—I'm not sure that I know anything worth repeating at your dinner-table," he protested.
But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution.