"You see—I couldn't tell our directorate," he went on; "but there was always something lacking which I couldn't handle myself. We need him, and we've got to have him! You can get him, I know you can. You can do anything you like. You're wonderful!"
She sat and looked at him, her lips still parted in the same enigmatic smile which he did not like to see; but she made no answer.
"What's wrong with him?" he went on immediately. "What does he say is the trouble, anyway? And is it the truth that he's got the overhead current?"
She nodded. "Of course, I know something about it from my work in the office. Yes, he told me that he had done what you have all been trying to do so long. He said he came over under power from the overhead—just as he told you."
"He may be lying, for all we know. You can't look at a car and tell where its charge came from. Electricity is electricity, to all intents and purposes. What I want to know is, what he's got against us, anyhow, Jennie?"
"Well, for one thing, he seemed troubled because Grace would not go back with him. He seemed to think that you and the life you could give her had been the reason for her abandoning him."
"Why, what nonsense! Grace hasn't abandoned him! And I only got her over here because I needed her myself—before—well, before we were married. Who was to take care of me, I'd like to know? And you say he complains of that!"
"That was one of the things."
"But Grace would go back! She's none too well pleased now, since you and I have taken charge here. She'd go back to Charley to-morrow if he asked her—why, I'd make him take care of her, of course. The trouble with him is, he values his own personal affairs too much. That's no way to begin in the business world. A man has to bend everything to the one purpose of success. Look at me, for instance."
IV