"'Deed he do, suh. Does you want to see him?"
"Yes. At once, please. Tell him it is most important. My name is Hodgman."
The servant eyed him with cool disfavor. "Set down, suh," she remarked stiffly. "I'll tell him you is here."
The caller watched her, as she disappeared into the house, then cast himself impatiently into a chair and lit a cigar.
He paid no attention to the attempts of two clumsy collie puppies to attract his favorable notice, but contented himself with making a quick survey of the wide comfortable veranda, with its big roomy chairs, the wicker table, bearing a great jar of red peonies, the smooth green lawns, swept by the late afternoon sun.
"Fine old place," he muttered to himself. "Wonder if I can persuade him to go?"
As the car which had brought Mr. Hodgman on his hasty trip from Washington dashed up to the front of the house, Grace Duvall, looking very charming in a blue linen dress, was just approaching it from the rear.
She held a pair of shears in her hand, and her apron was filled to overflowing with hundred-leaf roses. "Dick—oh, Dick!" she called, as she came down the long avenue of syringas and lilacs which led to the house. "The sweet peas are nearly ready to bloom."
Richard Duvall, looking as simply pastoral as though he had never tracked an international crook to cover, raised his head from the flower bed, in which he had been carefully setting out circle after circle of geranium plants.
"Are they?" he laughed. "That's good. Now all we need is a few good hot days." He gathered up his trowel and rake, and started toward the barn.