“Ordinarily, I should suppose, Mr. Grillage doesn’t trouble himself to keep tab on the many apprentice engineers that he has scattered around on his numerous contracts, but I’ve had more than a hint that he looks my way, now and then. Only yesterday Grimsby was telling me in his sort of bitter way that he guessed the big boss was grooming me for something better than I have now. While I’m well enough satisfied with my present billet, I’m not married to it so that Mr. Grillage couldn’t divorce me. Anyway, here’s hoping.”
It was only a short fortnight after the writing of this home letter that David was summoned to Chicago by a telegram from the king of the contractors, and he went with a light heart, half forecasting another promotion. Also, he was soberly jubilant over the thought that, by some happy conjunction of the lucky planets, he might again be permitted to divide time, at least for one evening, with Virginia Grillage’s retinue of court-payers.
VII
A Reward of Merit
IT was after city office hours when David Vallory reached Chicago, arriving in obedience to the telegram from headquarters, and he was preparing to go to a hotel for the night when a brisk young fellow in livery singled him out to ask his name and to tell him that Mr. Grillage’s car had been sent for him. In the waiting automobile, to his unbounded surprise and delight, he found Miss Virginia. The lapse of something over a year had only made her more ravishingly beautiful in David’s eyes, and his welcome was all that he could ask—and more.
“You ought to feel highly honored,” she said, making room for him in the limousine. “I ran away from a houseful of people to come in town for you.” And then, lest he should be too unreasonably happy: “It is so good to be reminded of dear, old, study Middleboro again!”
“I wish to goodness I might remind you of something besides Middleboro,” David complained, laughing; “of myself, for example, or Palm Beach, or—well, in fact, almost anything. Do you realize that it is over a year since we last met?”
“I do, indeed. Also, I realize that you have never, by any chance, written a line or happened to come to Chicago at any time when I’ve been at home. Or perhaps you’ve been here and didn’t think it worth while to let me know.”
“Nothing like it,” said David, matching her mood. “I haven’t been in the city since your father sent me to Coulee du Sac, unless you count the car-changing times when I went home at Christmas. You don’t realize that I have become a workingman since I left the Government service. I have, and I’ve had a laudable ambition to stick to the job and earn my wages honestly.” Then, as the car began threading its way through the traffic to the northward: “Where are you taking me?”
“Home, of course; to The Maples.”
“To the houseful of people? I shall disgrace you.”