It was while Brockway was making his second circuit of the private car that Mrs. Burton looked up and encountered the calculating gaze of the President.
"Ah—good-morning, Mrs. Burton; you remember me, I see. On your way back to Utah, are you?"
"Yes—" the "sir" was on the tip of her tongue, but she managed to suppress it. "We have been to Chicago, to the passenger meeting."
"So I inferred. Do you enjoy Chicago, Mrs. Burton?"
She felt that five minutes of this would unhinge her reason, but she made shift to answer, intelligently: "Yes, in a way; but I've never been about much. Mr. Burton is always so busy when we are there."
"Precisely; always busy; that is the whole history of civilized man in two words, isn't it? But where is your good husband?"
"He is in the wash-room," she began; but at that moment Burton appeared.
"Ha!" said the President; "good-morning, Mr. Burton. You didn't expect to find me here chatting with your wife, did you?"
"Well, no, not exactly—that is—" Burton's one weakness lay in undue deference to his superior officers, and he stumbled helplessly. But his wife came promptly to the rescue.
"It's such a distinction, Mr. Vennor, that we don't know how to properly acknowledge it," she retorted, laughing, "Will you excuse me if I finish buttoning my shoe?"