Anyway, Keefe had long cultivated a crisp, abrupt style of conversation. That is, until he fell in with Samuel Appleby. That worthy ex-governor, while in the act of engaging Keefe to be his confidential secretary, observed: “They call you Curt, do they? Well, see to it that it is short for courtesy.”
This was only one of several equally sound bits of advice from the same source, and as Keefe had an eye single to the glory of self-advancement, he kept all these things and pondered them in his heart.
The result was that ten years of association with Lawyer Appleby had greatly improved the young man’s manner, and though still brief of speech, his curtness had lost its unpleasantly sharp edge and his courtesy had developed into a dignified urbanity, so that though still Curt Keefe, it was in name only.
“What’s the pretty letter all about, Curtie?” asked the observant stenographer, who had noticed his third reading of the short missive.
“You’ll probably answer it soon, and then you’ll know,” was the reply, as Keefe restored the sheet to its envelope and took up the next letter.
Genevieve Lane produced her vanity-case, and became absorbed in its possibilities.
“I wish I didn’t have to work,” she sighed; “I wish I was an opera singer.”
“‘Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition,’ murmured Keefe, his eyes still scanning letters; ‘by that sin fell the angels,’ and it’s true you are angelic, Viva, so down you’ll go, if you fall for ambition.”
“How you talk! Ambition is a good thing.”
“Only when tempered by common sense and perspicacity—neither of which you possess to a marked degree.”