CHAPTER XII.
“I think, Mr. Budd, that Mr. Fenton can give you the advice and counsel that I have so wofully failed to furnish you,” remarked Gertrude, after her callers were seated. “You see, Mr. Fenton takes the new woman seriously.”
“Surely, Mr. Budd,” said John Fenton, “there is no great merit in that. We are obliged to, are we not?”
“I am disappointed in you, Mr. Fenton,” exclaimed Gertrude. “I thought you did it willingly, and now you hint at compulsion.”
Buchanan Budd grasped the opportunity for a flank movement.
“You have thrown yourself open to suspicion, Mr. Fenton. I fear your counsel and advice to one who is very glad to welcome woman to new privileges would not be as valuable as I had hoped it would be.”
Fenton saw that he had placed himself at a disadvantage.
“You both do me an injustice,” he explained. “Although there may be, as I have said, no possibility of retreat, we men still take pleasure in advancing with women, rather than against them.”
Budd saw at once that his opponent was a strategist worthy of his own Napoleonic skill.