Ford opened the door and went out, leaving the president clutching his chair with one hand and balling the other into a shaking fist. The die was cast, and he had thrown a blank at the very moment when the game seemed to be turning his way. What would Alicia say?
As if the unspoken query had evoked her, the door of her room opened silently and she stood before him in the corridor.
"Tell me," she commanded.
"We have fought it out, and I've had my beating," he said soberly. "When I thought I had him fairly down,—he was actually begging me to stay on with the company,—we got tangled up again over North, and he fired me bodily."
"Did you—did you tell him about our—"
"Yes; and that was what set off the final fireworks."
She put her hands on his shoulders and made him face her squarely.
"Stuart, did you lose your temper?"
"I—I'm afraid I did—just at the last, you know. It's simply an unspeakable state of affairs, Alicia, dear! At a moment when we should be setting the whole world afire in a superhuman effort to flog this piece of construction track into shape, your uncle paralyzes everything!"
The constraining touch of her hands became almost a caress. "What shall you do, Stuart? Is there nothing to be done?"