She let him look into what she wished him to believe were the very ultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn't flatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and for another, it's disappointing."
They were passing out of the foundry on their way back to the office and he held the weighted door open for her.
"A bit of honest praise isn't flattery," he protested. "But supposing it were a mere compliment—why should you find it disappointing?"
"Because one has to have anchors of some sort; anchors in sincerity and straightforwardness, in the honesty of purpose that will say, 'No-no!' and slap the best-beloved baby's hands, if that's what is needed. That is your proper rôle, Mr. Raymer, and you must never hesitate to take it."
It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but it sufficed to cut out all the middle distances. The tour of the works which had begun in passing acquaintance ended in friendship, precisely as Miss Grierson had meant it should; and when Raymer was tucking her into the cutter and wrapping her in the fur robes, she added the finishing touch, or rather the touch for which all the other touches had been the preliminaries.
"I'm so glad I had the courage to come and see you this morning. We have been dreadfully remiss in church matters, but I am going to try to make up for it in the future. I'm sorry you couldn't come to us last evening. Please tell your mother and sister that I do hope we'll meet, sometime. I should so dearly love to know them. Thank you so much for everything. Good-by."
Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of the fiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and the smile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical was now openly approbative.
"She is a shrewd little strategist," was his comment; "but all the same she is a mighty pretty girl, and as good and sensible as she is shrewd. I wonder why mother and Gertrude haven't called on her?"
Having thus mined the Raymer outworks, Miss Grierson next turned her batteries upon the Farnhams. They were Methodists, and having learned that the doctor's hobby was a struggling mission work in Pottery Flat, Margery called the paternal check-book again into service, and the cutter drew up before the doctor's office in Main Street.
"Good-morning, doctor," she began cheerfully, bursting in upon the head of the First-Church board of administrators as a charming embodiment of youthful enthusiasm, "I'm running errands for poppa this morning. Mr. Rodney was telling us about that little First-Church mission in Pottery Flat, and poppa wanted to help. But we are not Methodists, you know, and he was afraid—that is, he didn't quite know how you might——"