"Yes, indeed; the major is all right; as you'd find out for yourself if you'd make up your mind to stay in Portal City and get acquainted with him," Mr. Chadwick was going on; and by that time the major and the two pretty ones had come on to where the boss and Mr. Chadwick could see them.
I saw the boss sit up in his chair and stare at them. Then he said: "That's Mrs. Macrae with him now. Is she a member of his family?"
"A second cousin, or something of that sort," said Mr. Chadwick. "I met her once at the major's house out in the northern suburb last summer, and that's how I came to know her when you put her aboard of the Alexa back yonder in the gulch."
Mr. Norcross let the three of them get out and away, and we heard their taxi speed up and trundle off before he said, "She is married, I'm told. Where is her husband?"
Mr. Chadwick looked up as if he'd already forgotten the three who had just crossed the lobby.
"Who—Sheila Macrae? Yes, she has been married. But there isn't any husband—she's a widow."
For quite a while the boss sat staring at his cigar in a way he has when he is thinking right hard, and Mr. Chadwick let him alone, being busy, I guess, with his own little scrap that lay just ahead of him in the coming directors' meeting. Then, all of a sudden, the boss got up and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.
"I've changed my mind, Uncle John," he said, looking sort of absent-like out of the window to where the major's taxi had been standing. "If you can pull me into that deal to-morrow morning—with an absolutely free hand to do as I think best, mind you—I'll take the job."