"I see," she nodded, and then, without warning: "What was the matter with you last night—about dinner-time?"
"Why should you think there was anything the matter with me?"
"I was out driving with the Stantons. When I came back to the hotel I found Colonel Baldwin and another man—a lawyer, I think he was—waiting for me. They said you were needing a friend who could go and talk to you and—'calm you down,' was the phrase the lawyer used. I was good-natured enough to go with them, but when we reached your offices you had gone, and the ranch girl was there alone, waiting for her father."
"That was nonsense!" he commented; "their going after you as if I were a maniac or a drunken man, I mean."
This time Miss Richlander's smile was distinctly resentful. "I suppose the colonel's daughter answered the purpose better," she said. "There was an awkward little contretemps, and Miss Baldwin refused, rather rudely, I thought, to tell her father where you had gone."
Smith broke away from the unwelcome subject abruptly, saying: "There is something else you ought to know. Jibbey is here, at last."
"Here in the hotel?"
"Yes."
"Does he know you are here?"
"He does."