Dacre was all smiles instantly. “What! Mrs. Marten’s father?” he cried. “Delighted to meet you! Sit down, Mr. Willard. Let us become better known to each other!”
Willard was hardly prepared for this cordial recognition; but he shook hands affably, and seated himself in Power’s chair, as it chanced.
“You have heard of me from my daughter, I suppose?” he began.
“Yes. She was telling Mrs. Van Ralten and several others, including myself—let me see, was it last night at the Casino?—that you were thinking of coming East; but I gathered she did not expect you till a few days later. I was mistaken, evidently.”
“No. I am giving her a surprise. I managed to get away sooner than I expected, and the prospect of Newport’s Atlantic breezes was so enticing that I just made a rush for the next train.”
“Well, you are here, and the long journey is ended, a pleasant achievement in itself. Was the train accident a serious one?”
Willard supplied details, and his sympathetic hearer swapped reminiscences of a similar mishap on the Paris, Lyon et Mediterranée Railway. Incidentally, he wasted quarter of an hour before Willard could bring him back to the topic of the missing Power.
“Ah, yes—as to Power,” nodded Dacre, seemingly recalling his questioner’s errand. “Too bad you didn’t turn up yesterday. Power is off to New York—made up his mind on the spur of the moment—and I rather fancy he will not be in Newport again this year. Indeed, I may go so far as to say I am sure he won’t, because he has invited me to his place at Bison—somewhere near Denver, isn’t it?—and I am to keep him posted as to my own movements, so that we can arrange things to our mutual convenience.”
Willard laughed, intending merely to convey his sense of the absurdity of two men playing hide and seek across a continent; but Dacre’s allusion to Bison brought a snarl into his mirth.
“You will write to the ranch, I suppose?” he inquired casually.