He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor did he go into that now.
"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage."
"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished that on us in person before we sail?"
"I don't know," he mumbled. "I—"
A perfectly mad impulse seized him.
"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver.
"Yes."
He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp. And the single word was slightly uncertain.
"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?"
She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised—or merely amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool. Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush.