“Oh, I don't know,” answered T. A. Buck, through his teeth. “I can stand as stiff a scrimmage as the next one. But this isn't a game. You take things too lightly. You're a woman. I don't think you know what this means.”
Emma McChesney's lips opened as do those of one whose tongue's end holds a quick and stinging retort. Then they closed again. She walked over to the big window that faced the street. When she had stood there a moment, silent, she swung around and came back to where T. A. Buck stood, still wrapped in gloom.
“Maybe I don't take myself seriously. I'd have been dead ten years ago if I had. But I do take my job seriously. Don't forget that for a minute. You talk the way a man always talks when his pride is hurt.”
“Pride! It isn't that.”
“Oh, yes, it is. I didn't sell T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats on the road for almost ten years without learning a little something about men and business. When your father died, and I learned that he had shown his appreciation of my work and loyalty by making me secretary of this great company, I didn't think of it as a legacy—a stroke of good fortune.”
“No?”
“No. To me it was a sacred trust—something to be guarded, nursed, cherished. And now you say we've run this concern into the ground. Do you honestly think that?”
T. A. shrugged impotent shoulders. “Figures don't lie.” He plunged into another fathom of gloom. “Another year like this and we're done for.”
Emma McChesney came over and put one firm hand on T. A. Buck's drooping shoulder. It was a strange little act for a woman—the sort of thing a man does when he would hearten another man.
“Wake up!” she said, lightly. “Wake up, and listen to the birdies sing. There isn't going to be another year like this. Not if the planning, and scheming, and brain-racking that I've been doing for the last two or three months mean anything.”