The clerk still held the note. He presently beckoned to a negro boy sitting on one of the carved benches.
"Washington," he said.
Washington came forward to the counter.
"Wash," said the clerk in an undertone—an undress tone kept for those upon whom it would have been useless to waste his habitual bearing as the representative of the corporate proprietorship of the building—"has Mr. Millard's man come in yet?"
"No, sir."
"Take this up to seventy-nine, and say that the lady is below and insists on his being called at once." Then to Phillida, as the form of Washington vanished upward by way of the marble staircase, "Will you take a seat in the reception-room?" waving his hand slightly in the direction of a portière, behind which Phillida found herself in the ladies' reception-room.
In ten minutes Millard came down the elevator, glanced about the office, and then quickly entered the reception-room. There were unwonted traces of haste in his toilet; his hair had been hastily brushed, but it had been brushed, as indeed it would probably have been if Washington had announced that the Graydon was in flames.
There was a moment of embarrassment. What manner was proper for such a meeting? It would not do to say "Phillida," and "Miss Callender" would sound forced and formal. Phillida was equally embarrassed as she came forward, but Millard's tact relieved the tension. He spoke in a tone of reserve and yet of friendliness.
"Good-morning. I hope no disaster has happened to you." The friendly eagerness of this inquiry took off the brusqueness of omitting her name, and the anxiety that prompted it was sincere.
"There is no time for explanations," said Phillida, hurriedly. "Mr. Martin has called a Christian Science healer to see Tommy, who is very ill with diphtheria."