Instead she removed the headgear of the receiver and rose. She went inside the door at her back and closed it after her.
"Well, that's some service," thought Burke. "I wonder why she's so active after indifference?"
She returned before he had a chance to ruminate further.
"You can go right in, sir," she said.
As she sat down she watched him from the corner of her eye. Burke could not help but wonder at the tense interest in his presence, but dismissed the thought as he entered the room, and beheld the president of the Purity League.
William Trubus was seated at a broad mahogany desk, while before him was spread a large, old-fashioned family Bible. He held in his left hand a cracker, which he was munching daintily, as he read in an abstracted manner from the page before him. In his right hand was a glass containing a red liquid, which Burke at first sight supposed was wine. He was soon to be undeceived.
He stood a full minute while the president of the League mumbled to himself as he perused the Sacred Writ. Bobbie was thus enabled to get a clear view of the philanthropist's profile, and to study the great man from a good point of vantage.
Trubus was rotund. His cheeks were rosy evidences of good health, good meals and freedom from anxiety as to where those good meals were to come from. His forehead was round, and being partially bald, gave an appearance of exaggerated intellectuality.
His nose was that of a Roman centurion—bold, cruel as a hawk's beak, strong-nostriled as a wolf's muzzle. His firm white teeth, as they crunched on the cracker suggested, even stronger, the semblance to a carnivorous animal of prey. A benevolent-looking pair of gold-rimmed glasses sat astride that nose, but Burke noticed that, oddly enough, Trubus did not need them for his reading, nor later when he turned to look at the young officer.
The plump face was adorned with the conventional "mutton-chop" whiskers which are so generally associated in one's mental picture of bankers, bishops and reformers. The whiskers were so resolutely black, that Burke felt sure they must have been dyed, for Trubus' plump hands, with their wrinkles and yellow blotches, evidenced that the philanthropist must have passed the three-score milestone of time.