"I was not sick, just full of badness," she conscientiously explained. "Although it might not have happened if I had been altogether just the same as usual, Anthony."

They talked over the affair at more leisure, that evening. But they could find no reason for Lucille Masterson's insistence upon that brief interview with Anthony. Why had she forced him to attend her? He could honestly assure Elsie that Mrs. Masterson had made no attempt to win him back to his former allegiance; rather, she had taunted and antagonized him. As a caprice, they finally classified and dismissed the episode.

What they did not dismiss from their thoughts was the conversation they had held in the new white house, the day they had bought the guitar. They did not speak of Anthony's ambitions, but Elsie came to speak often and with freer enthusiasm of her native Louisiana. Her husband saw through the innocent ruse with keener penetration than she recognized, and so far it failed. He understood that she was cunningly preparing to make easy for him their way of retreat, in case he lost his fight; preparing to convince him that was the way she most desired to go. He loved her the better; and was the more obstinately determined to force his own way.

CHAPTER XVIII
The Challenge

Each day found Anthony less willing to leave the place he had chosen. He did not want to abandon the work commenced in the factory; he had attained an active personal interest in his progress there. He was well aware that he would soon know more about some possibilities of the mill than did Mr. Goodwin himself. His father never had concerned himself at all with such matters. Mr. Adriance was the converging-point of the many lines forming a widespread net of affairs in which this factory was but one strand. He did not even find time to notice Mr. Goodwin's advancing years and the desire for retirement the old man was too proud to voice. But the strand whose smallness was disdained by the greater Adriance might well prove able to support the lesser.

An accident still further determined his wish to remain. One day Mr. Goodwin came down to the lower room; occupied the chair in Adriance's enclosure for a quarter-hour and watched the proceedings. These occasional visits had done much to establish firmly "Andy's" authority, yielding as they did the manager's sanction to the new order of things. But this time Mr. Goodwin had something to say to the young man whom he and Cook had grown to regard as a fortunate discovery of their own.

"Andy," he began, using the nickname as Adriance himself had suggested on observing the positive reluctance with which the old gentleman handled familiarly the revered name of the factory's owner; "Andy, to-morrow there will be a meeting at the office of Mr. Adriance in New York City; I shall be present." He cleared his throat a trifle importantly. "I shall have pleasure in mentioning the excellent, the really excellent, work you have done here. I shall mention you personally."

Anthony carefully put down the papers he held and stood still, trouble darkening across his face. He saw what was coming, and he saw no way to stop it. He did not want his father to learn of his presence here from an outsider, or at a public meeting. He wanted to tell Mr. Adriance his own story, with their kinship to help him. He wanted to explain Elsie to the man who was championing Mrs. Masterson; he wanted to tell him of the new Adriance to come. He hardly thought it possible that his father would deny him the simple opportunity he asked, or try to force the monstrous wrong of a separation between man and wife, if he understood. But if the bare fact that Tony was secretly in his employ were flung before him, Mr. Adriance was quite capable of regarding this as an added defiance and even mockery of himself. Mr. Goodwin's speech flowed placidly on:

"Your abilities are really exceptional, exceptional; I am sure that they will be suitably appreciated. You are doing much better work than Ransome. I shall advise that I be allowed to create a new position for you at a new salary. I should like you to supervise the entire shipping department on this floor, not merely the trucking."