"Oh, the devil!" Gregory turned at Forty-Second, passed the Subway station and continued on to his office.
The elevator had stopped running and he walked the three flights. The last mail lay on his desk as the office boy had stacked it. On the top, anchored by a paper weight so that he would be sure to see it instantly, was a telegram. Gregory tore it open. It was from Amos Palmer, asking him to come at once. The Palmers were hastening their departure for Europe and wanted some changes made in the plans.
For weeks the Palmer place had been a joke with him and Jean and Dr. Mary. They had taken turns in designing terrible ornamentations which would advertize for miles Palmer's success in the leather trade. Dr. Mary had insisted on a golden shoe for a weather-cock on the ten thousand dollar barn, and Jean had suggested carving cattle all over a turret. Gregory smiled as he recalled Jean's painful efforts with the cow.
It was the biggest job he had had for years. But—the remaining month of summer shut up with Amos and his wife and the ten-thousand-dollar barn.
"I'll be damned if I——"
Gregory stopped, sat down at his desk and lit his pipe. He smoked one pipe and lit another. Again and again he filled his pipe, lit, and smoked slowly.
It was very late when he took down the 'phone and sent an affirmative telegram to Amos Palmer.
Then he looked up trains. There was one at eight in the morning. Gregory wrote a note of explanation to Margaret and laid it on the mail to be sent out first in the morning. Then he took a sheet of paper, started a note to Jean, tore it and began one to Dr. Mary. When he read it over it sounded as if he were apologizing for going at all. He tore this and tried again. Now he seemed to be asking permission. This followed the others to the waste-basket and Gregory locked his desk. There was really no need to write at all. They would understand that he had been called away, and anyhow the plans were finished. When he returned, things would be different. Summer would be over. Gregory whistled as he packed the Palmer plans, and all the way down the three flights to the street.
It was after one, but the crowds still moved in four streams, two up, two down. Gregory wondered why so many people walked in the night, as if the city, like a nervous woman, must never be left alone.