"But it, or something else, has changed you—very much for the worse. Are you going to reconsider and take me out to the Baldwin ranch this afternoon?"
"And let you parade me there as your latest acquisition?—never in this world!"
"More of the brutality. Positively, you are getting me into a frame of mind in which Tucker Jibbey will seem like a blessed relief. Whatever do you suppose has become of Tucker?"
"How should I know?"
"If he had come in last night, and you had met him—as I asked you to—in any such heavenly temper as you are indulging now, I might think you had murdered him."
It was doubtless by sheer accident that Smith, reaching at the moment for the salad-oil, overturned his water-glass. But the small accident by no means accounted for the sudden graying of his face under the Timanyoni wind tan—for that or for the shaking hands with which he seconded the waiter's anxious efforts to repair the damage. When they were alone again, the momentary trepidation had given place to a renewed hardness that lent a biting rasp to his voice.
"Kinzie, the suspicious old banker that I've been telling you about, is determined to run me down," he said, changing the subject abruptly. "I've got it pretty straight that he is planning to send one of his clerks to the Topaz district to try and find your father."
"In the hope that father will tell what he knows about you?"
"Just that."
"Does this Mr. Kinzie know where father is to be found?"