“Wonder if she’d like to see him,” speculated Marie. “She seemed awfully cheerful when I saw her in the summer, right after he’d been in Cleveland. For my part I should certainly like to see him.” Marie sighed again. “I get so sick of having no men to talk to—not even faculty men. Every single one of my divisions recites to a woman.”
That night Montana Marie let her mind wander shamefully from math., lit., and Latin prose. At last her contemplative smile flashed out into sudden, mischievous brilliancy. Selecting a sheet of her best lavender-tinted, violet-scented note-paper, she covered it rapidly with her sprawling, unformed characters, and directed it to Mr. James Watson, in care of his firm, the name of which she had fortunately remembered from Mary’s recital.
Two days later Jim Watson, grinning sheepishly, stuck his head, in his accustomed furtive fashion, in at Betty’s office door. Finding only one small person, with curls and a dimple, in the office, Jim came in a little further, and stood awaiting developments, grinning now much more cheerfully.
“What in the world are you doing here?” demanded Betty breathlessly, jumping up to shake hands.
Jim strolled over to the desk. “Don’t get up.” He sat down solemnly in the visitors’ chair. “Don’t you really know why I’m here?”
“No-o,” gasped Betty, dreadfully afraid of what might be coming next. “But I know something else. You ought to be hard at work in New York.”
“I have come,” Jim began very solemnly, “to investigate serious charges brought against the efficiency of the architects, particularly the resident architect-in-charge, of Morton Hall. My first duty is naturally to ascertain whether you are personally convinced of the truth of said charges. We aim to please.” Jim grinned again. “Particularly, to please one small secretary, with curls and a dimple, and a lot too much to do.”
Betty leaned back in her big chair and wrinkled her face into a delightful, childlike, all-over smile. “Please explain, Jim. It’s mean to tease a person like me that can’t ever see through it.”
Jim frowned, a portentous, businesslike frown. “Haven’t I made myself clear, Miss Secretary?” He fumbled in his pockets, and produced with a flourish Montana Marie’s lavender-tinted, violet-scented, scrawling note. “I got this communication yesterday, and I came right up to see about it.” He handed the note to Betty.
“Mr. James Watson,
“Dear Sir: