Power retained his rooms at the Ocean House; but saw little of other inmates of the hotel unless they happened to mix in the same set. His friends of the dinner-table, except Dacre, had gone, and the Englishman, like Power, was made an honorary member of the Casino Club; so they kept up and developed an acquaintance which had begun so pleasantly.
The close intimacy between Mrs. Marten and the stranger from Colorado attracted slight comment. No breath of scandal fluttered the dovecotes of Newport. The behavior of the pair was exemplary, and, beyond the accepted fact that, if any hostess desired the presence of one she must invite the other, gossip about them was noticeable by its absence. Their mutual use of Christian names from the outset established a tacit cousinship, and the only growl uttered behind their backs was an occasional complaint from some anxious mother who found her attractive daughters completely eclipsed, in the eyes of at least one eligible young man, by the millionaire's wife.
Once, and once only, before the crash came, did Nancy allude to the purloined letters. She and Power were riding along the Cliff Walk before breakfast, when she broached the subject quite unexpectedly.
"Derry, I want to ask you something," she said seriously. "Did my father and you ever quarrel without my knowledge--before I left Bison, I mean?"
"Don't be stupid! I hate answers in monosyllables. When you say no like that, one suspects that it may really be a kind of yes."
"Then let me make it the most definite sort of negative. Remember, you fixed a period. The last time I spoke to Mr. Willard before I was--before I went to Sacramento--I had supper at the ranch."
He carried reminiscence no farther. She stole a look at him; but his eyes were fixed on a faint blur of smoke rising over the azure plain of the Atlantic from an invisible steamship. On that unforgetable night of three and a half years ago, a starlit night of spring, she had walked with him to the mouth of the Gulch, and in bidding each other farewell they had exchanged their first and last kiss.
"Father was certainly not an enemy of yours then," she went on, in a singularly even tone. Indeed, she might have been debating a matter of utmost triviality. "It seemed to me that he always welcomed you at the ranch. Why did he become so bitterly opposed to you afterward?"