"As if," said Bonbright to himself, "she were happy—and wanted everybody else to be."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Rangar. "She's competent."
They passed outside and through a covered passageway into the older of the shops. Bonbright was not thinking about the shops, but about the girl. She was the only thing he had encountered that momentous morning that had interested him, the only thing upon which Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, had not set the stamp of its repressing personality.
He tried to visualize her and her smile that he might experience again that sensation of relief, of lightened spirit. In a measure he was able to do so. Her mouth was large, he saw—no small mouth could have managed that grin. She was not pretty, but, somehow, attractive. Her eyes were bully; intelligent, humorous sort of eyes, he decided.
"Bet she's a darn nice kid," he concluded, boyishly. His father would have been shocked at a thought expressed in such words.
"The business has done wonders these last five years," said Rangar, intruding on Bonbright's thoughts. "Five years ago we employed less than a thousand hands; to-day we have more than five thousand on the payroll. Another few years and we shall have ten thousand."
"Axles?" asked Bonbright, mechanically.
"Axles," replied Rangar.
"Father doesn't approve of them—but they must be doing considerable for the family bank account."
Rangar shot a quick glance at the boy, a glance with reproof in it for such a flippancy. Vaguely he had heard that this young man had done things not expected from a Foote; had, for instance, gone in for athletics at the university. It was reported he had actually allowed himself to be carried once on the shoulders of a cheering mob of students! There were other rumors, also, which did not sit well on the Foote tradition. Rangar wondered if at last a Foote had been born into the family who was not off the old piece of cloth, who might, indeed, prove difficult and disappointing. The flippancy indicated it.