"It was a very lively day indeed." And, once started, I described, with such entertaining details as I could recall, some of the incidents of our struggle to keep the car of commerce on the track.
"I didn't mean all that," she said at last. "It's very amusing, but I'm not in the mood to be amused. Neither are you. What I want to know about is uncle's business."
"Well, as for that," I replied, "we got through another day safely. We had one or two exceedingly tight pinches, but we wriggled out all right. I guess the worst of it is over, and we shall pull through in good shape."
She dropped my arm with an impatient gesture, and I felt a sudden breaking of the current of silent communication that had drawn us together.
"Won't you tell me just what happened at the office to-day, and just how we stand? Didn't I tell you that I find nothing so terrible as uncertainty? It is the unknown that scares me. Let me see what is before me, and I'll have the courage to face it. Tell me the truth as you would tell it to uncle if you were talking to him instead of to me." Her tone was so pleading that my heart melted within me, and I was shaken with the desire to take her in my arms and tell her that it would be the business of my life to shield her from harm. It was a minute before I had a firm grasp on myself. Then I laid the whole account of Wharton Kendrick's business before her, as fully as I knew it.
She heard me soberly, with only a question here and there to clear up the points she did not understand. Then she asked:
"The troubles aren't over yet, are they?"
"No."
"And what shall you do to-morrow?"
"I wish I knew."