Again he studiously included them both in his answer. “I'm afraid all right, but I'm not going to let you know it. Did I hear you set a time?”
“If you are really willing to take the risk we shall be glad to see you this afternoon.”
James observed that Alice Frome did not second her cousin's invitation. He temporized.
“Oh, this afternoon! I have an engagement, but I am tempted to forget it in remembering a subsequent one.”
His smiling gaze passed to Alice and gave her another chance. Still she did not speak.
“The way to treat a temptation is to yield to it,” the older cousin sparkled.
“In order to be done with it, I suppose. Very well. I yield to mine. This afternoon I will have the pleasure of calling at The Brakes.”
Alice nodded a curt good-bye, but her cousin offered him a beautifully gloved hand to shake. A delightful tingle of triumph warmed him. The daughter of Big Joe Powers, the grim gray pirate who worked the levers of the great Transcontinental Railroad system, had taken pains to be nice to him. The only fly in the ointment of his self-satisfaction had been Alice Frome's reticence.
Why had she not shown any desire to have him call? He could guess at one reason. The campaign for the legislature and the subsequent battle for the senatorship had been bitter. Charges of corruption had been flung broadcast. A dozen detectives had been hired to get evidence on one side or the other. If he were seen going to The Brakes just now fifty rumors might be flying inside of the hour.
His guess was a good one. Alice drove the car forward several blocks without speaking, Valencia Van Tyle watching with good-humored contempt the little frown that rested on her cousin's candid face.