"I don't see anything so amusing about that. It means that you're not sure of your fee, as far as I can see."
"Oh, I'm quite sure about that. There is no fee. I'm doing it for nothing."
"Well, I must say——" Margaret broke off. It was the one fixed principle of her relations with Gregory that they never had an open difference of opinion, especially before Puck. Above all things Margaret Allen was well bred and she could no more have cleared the atmosphere in a burst of anger than she could have struck some one. She never dynamited an obstacle with outspoken objection. She returned again and again and scratched at it.
"Is the contractor giving his time, and the laborers?"
Gregory was still looking off to the line of trees and smiling.
"It isn't started yet. But they may."
Margaret moved to the piazza rail and sat down. She was slight and so fair that she seemed part of the sunlight sifting through the thick green of the wistaria.
"Who's backing it? Somebody must be behind it all."
"Oh yes. There's some one very much behind it; in fact, two people."
It was impossible for Gregory to think of the plan without Dr. Mary—Dr. Mary and Jean and himself in Gramercy Park.