Mr. Stone cast upon the charming little spinster a glance so melting that it was impossible for the Motor Maids to keep from laughing.
“They have you to thank for that, Miss Campbell,” replied the big man. “I am completely won over, I assure you, madam. A charming woman is the most powerful influence in the world.”
An expression of amazement passed over the spinster’s face, followed almost immediately by one of intense amusement and embarrassment. There was a strained silence. Then Pasquale, clearing his throat several times significantly, announced breakfast.
In spite of the fatigue and nervous strain of the past six hours, everybody was hungry and Evelyn Stone was the most joyous member of the breakfast party. The shadow which had darkened her entire young life was dispelled. She had never dreamed that hidden deep somewhere behind that granite exterior her father had a real flesh and blood heart.
It was Miss Campbell who had discovered it and it was Miss Campbell who must now pay the penalty of her discovery.
No one ever knew exactly what conversation passed between her and the Mormon gentleman on the terrace that morning after breakfast. But they guessed that the little spinster had received a declaration of love and an offer of marriage. At any rate, half an hour later, she shut herself into her room and refused to appear again until dinner time.
As for Mr. Stone, he took an automobile ride with the Motor Maids and made himself most agreeable. On the way home, he bought everything he could find in the way of fruit and flowers for the little lady who had touched his heart. He was as frankly and openly in love as a boy, and love which comes to those past fifty is of an extremely poignant nature.
But Miss Campbell had no intention of wedding even a reformed Mormon and settling in Salt Lake City.
“Never again will I enter that hateful place except in chains as a prisoner,” she had repeated many times, and her old lover, whose youth had been renewed like the eagle’s and whose character had been strangely transformed, entreated in vain.