"That first night, in the tree!" murmured Genevieve. "How easily you hauled us up with the vine rope! Ah, then—and now!"
Blake drew away from her, his face darkening. "Hope you don't think I expected to see you here? If Jimmy knew, he didn't tell me."
"How could he know? Dolores did not phone to me until mid-afternoon. But even had you been told, I see no reason why you shouldn't have come."
"You don't?" he asked, his face brightening. "I was afraid you might think I was trying to dodge your conditions. Besides, I had promised myself not to call on you till I thought I saw a way to work out a big piece of engineering that I'm on."
"Then you have a good position? I'm so glad!"
"Not a regular position. But I've been given work and a chance at one of the biggest things in hydraulics—the Zariba Dam, out in Arizona."
"You're not going away?" Calmly as she tried to speak, she could not entirely repress an under-note of apprehension. Slight as was the betrayal of feeling, it enheartened him immensely. He beamed up at the palm crests that brushed the glazed dome.
"Looks like they're going to raise the roof, doesn't it?" he said. "Feel that way myself. Your father unloaded the Zariba project onto the Coville Construction Company, and they've offered a cool fifty thousand dollars to the man that figures out a feasible way to construct the dam. I spoke about it before, you may remember; but this bonus wasn't up then. If I put it through, I'll be recognized as a first-class engineer."
"You will succeed, of course," said Genevieve with perfect confidence in his ability to overcome such a relatively easy difficulty.
"Hope so," responded Blake. "I'm still tunnelling in the dark, though.
Not a glimmer of a hole out."