"Obey me!" Ira laughed with boyish swagger. "And you a missionary!"
"Well, I've converted one heathen, anyway," said Anne as she darted down the corridor, followed by Ira, who announced his intention to "go to the baggage car and dig up his old Prince Albert."
In their flight forward they passed the mysterious woman in the stateroom. They were too full of their own mystery to give thought to hers. Mrs. Fosdick went timidly prowling toward the observation car, suspecting everybody to be a spy, as Mallory suspected everybody to be a clergyman in disguise.
As she stole along the corridor past the men's clubroom she saw her husband—her here-and-there husband—wearily counting the telegraph posts and summing them up into miles. She tapped on the glass and signalled to him, then passed on.
He answered with a look, then pretended not to have noticed, and waited a few moments before he rose with an elaborate air of carelessness. He beckoned the porter and said:
"Let me know the moment we enter Utah, will you?"
"Yassah. We'll be comin' along right soon now. We got to pass through the big Aspen tunnel, after that, befo' long, we splounce into old Utah."
"Don't forget," said Fosdick, as he sauntered out. Ashton perked up his ears at the promise of a tunnel and kept his eye on his watch.
Fosdick entered the observation room with a hungry look in his luscious eyes. His now-and-then wife put up a warning finger to indicate Mrs. Whitcomb's presence at the writing desk.
Fosdick's smile froze into a smirk of formality and he tried to chill his tone as if he were speaking to a total stranger.