Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/304

 been to Michelet. And after brooding upon this intelligence for only a few moments, Ogle came to the pleasant conclusion that the expedition to which he stood in the somewhat lavish relation of host was virtually a searching-party on the Djurdjurra mountain trail of the president of the Illinois and Union Paper Company.

This was a conclusion involving no little mortification of spirit for the young man who sat so quietly at the writing-table against the wall. Mme. Momoro looked at him several times as he continued to sit there; but he seemed to be engaged in examining the address he had written upon the envelope of his letter. However, after half an hour of this rather meaningless scrutiny, he got up and with a murmured good-night, left the room and went to bed.

In the morning he did not speak to her of what lay so heavily upon his mind; he suffered from it and from his horror of mountains, as they rode down slopes that stupefied him, but he suffered in silence. He had a premonition that she would herself open the subject, though he hoped she wouldn't until they had passed the grisliest part of the descent; and she fulfilled both his hope and his premonition. It was not until they had turned aside, below Fort National,