"Where did you know him, Dee?" asked Osterhout.
"Oh, it's a long story, Bobs," said the girl lightly.
Herein she said what was not true. It was a short story; short and vivid and bewildering. In the darkness she ran over the whole scope of it, every detail as clear as if it had not occurred nearly a year before: the breakdown of her motor car in the open country near Rahway; the stranger on the bank of a stream who had put down his rod and come to her aid, a roughly dressed stranger with questing eyes and a quaint turn of speech; the long and patient tinkering, with the mechanism, ending in a second collapse; the luncheon offered and shared, the talk that followed, a long, long talk such as Dee had never before known, running through luminous hours, touching all the realms of fancy until the incredulous sun turned his face from them and went down; the drive back to the village where she left him; his final words, "I am resisting an intolerable temptation when I say no more than good-bye and thank you," and then nothing until now.
Scott's voice broke in upon her meditations. "I must find out where he is."
"I don't believe I would, Cary," she advised after Osterhout had bidden them good-night.
"What? Not look up old Stanley? Why not?"
"I think he's cut himself off from all the old life. He—he's a queer person."
Until the car drew in at Holiday Knoll Scott thought that over in silence. Then he laid a friendly hand over Dee's. "Old girl," he said gently, "you seem to know a lot about him."
"So I do. You can learn a lot in an afternoon."
"There's a lot to learn. He's a wonderful person. Pretty tough to find him like this.... Are you really interested in him, Dee?"