"Oh, I don't know!" She exhaled the words, heavily. "I have heard my father say that depositors sometimes take fright at the slightest things concerning the private lives of bankers. Andy, I would not like for this to—cost Dick a cent. I couldn't bear that."
"Do you think you ought to entertain such fine-spun ideas in regard to him when—when he is living as he is?"
"That has bothered me, too," she said, quickly. "Somehow I can't believe that he ever really went back to that woman—that is, to live with her. I met her only a week ago on the street. She looked straight at me, and, somehow, I was sure that he and she were not as they used to be. Call it intuition if you like, but intuition is sometimes reliable. It may have been by accident that they were together when you saw them out there. He takes lonely walks in all sorts of directions. He is a strange combination. His love for little Dick, his constant worrying about him is remarkable. It used to make me mad, but in a way I respected him for it."
"Let's not talk about him," Buckton implored. "All this rubbish is giving you the blues. They have called dinner. Let's go back to the dining-car. The service is fairly good on this line."
"I couldn't eat a bite," Irene answered.
"Well, let us go in, anyway. It will be a change," he said, "and will take your mind off this gloomy subject. Think of what is ahead of us, darling, not behind."
She rose, and, with a smile of resignation to his will, she followed him through the vestibule into the dining-car. As they went in they met a portly man who stood aside for them to pass.
"How are you, Mr. Buckton?" the man smiled, cordially.
"Oh, how are you?" Buckton answered, with a start and a rapid scrutiny of the passenger's face. Moving on, he secured seats at a table for two. As they sat down facing each other he noticed that the man, who had paid the cashier for his meal and was waiting for his change, was eying him and Irene with a curious, almost bold stare.
"Who is that man?" Irene questioned, rather coldly, as she spread out her napkin.