Having placed Raymer, Broffin went in search of Miss Grierson. He found her on the broad veranda, alone, and for the moment unoccupied. How to make the attack so direct and so overwhelming that it could not be withstood was the only remaining question; and Broffin had answered it to his own satisfaction, and was advancing through an open French window directly behind Miss Grierson's chair to put the answer into effect, when the opportunity was snatched away. Raymer, with his roll of blue-prints under his arm and his business with the master car builder apparently concluded, came down the veranda and took the chair next to Miss Grierson's.
Broffin dropped back into the writing-room alcove for which the open French window was the outlet and sat down to bide his time, taking care that the chair which he noiselessly placed for himself should be out of sight from the veranda, but not out of earshot. It seemed very unlikely that the two young people who were enjoying the Minnedaskan view would say anything worth listening to; but the ex-harrier of moonshine-makers was of those who discount all chances.
For a time nothing happened. The two on the veranda talked of the view, of the coming regatta, of the latest lawn social given by the Guild of St. John's. Broffin surmised that they were waiting for the trap to be brought around from the hotel stables, though why there should be a delay was not so evident. But in any event his opportunity was lost unless he could contrive to isolate the young woman again. It was while he was groping for the compassing means that Raymer said:
"It's a shame to make you wait this way, Miss Madge. McMurtry said he had an appointment with Mr. Galbraith for three o'clock, and he had to go and keep it. But he ought to be down again by this time. Don't wait for me if you want to go back to town. I can get a lift from somebody."
"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" was the good-natured retort. "To make you tie up your own horse in town and then to leave you stranded away out here three miles from nowhere! I think I see myself doing such a thing! Besides, I haven't a thing to do but to wait."
Broffin shifted the extinct cigar he was chewing from one corner of his mouth to the other and pulled his soft hat lower over his eyes. He, too, could wait. There was a little stir on the veranda; a rustling of silk petticoats and the click of small heels on the hardwood floor. Broffin could not forbear the peering peep around the sheltering window draperies. Miss Grierson had left her seat and was pacing a slow march up and down before Raymer's chair, apparently for Raymer's benefit. The watcher behind the window draperies drew back quickly when she made the turn to face his way, arguing sapiently that whatever significance their further talk might hold would be carefully and thoughtfully neutralized if Miss Grierson should see him. That she had not seen him became a fact sufficiently well-assured when she sat down again and began to speak of Griswold.
"How is the new partnership going, by this time," she asked, after the manner of one who re-winnows the chaff of the commonplaces in the hope of finding grain enough for the immediate need.
"So far as Griswold is concerned, you wouldn't notice that there is a partnership," laughed the iron-founder. "I can't make him galvanize an atom of interest in his investment. All I can get out of him is, 'Don't bother me; I'm busy.'"
"Mr. Griswold is in a class by himself, don't you think?" was the questioning comment.
"He is all kinds of a good fellow; that's all I know, and all I ask to know," answered Raymer loyally.