"Don't you know? There's a magic taxi in the city--just one. You get in, you give your order, and lo and behold, rivers and seas are crossed, countries and continents, until finally you fetch up in the place where you would be, and when you look at the meter you find that it hasn't registered as much as a penny."
"Time," said Barbara, "flies even faster than a magic taxicab. So if you are going to 'phone--"
"Is there no drop of sentiment in that exquisite shell which the world knows as Barbara Ferris? Didn't any man ever mean anything to you, Barbs?"
She flushed slightly, for there had come into her thoughts quite unbidden the image of a certain young man in workman's clothes, kneeling at a door, and removing an old japanned iron lock. She shook her head firmly, and smiled up at him insultingly.
"Men, Wilmot," she said, "are nothing to me but planes, angles, curves, masses, lights, and shadows. They are either suited to sculpture or they aren't."
Wilmot laughed, and while he was busy with the telephone, Barbara tried to think of the secret-service agent in cold terms of planes, curves, masses, etc., and found that she couldn't. Which discovery annoyed and perplexed her.
XI
The girls who plaited hats for Blizzard had just finished luncheon and were taking their places at the long work-table. The entrance door having clanged its bell, twenty heads bent earnestly over twenty hats in various stages of construction, and twenty pairs of hands leaped into skilful activity.
The master passed up and down on his crutches, observing progress and despatch with slow-moving, introspective eyes. Presently he came to a halt and clapped his hands sharply together. Twenty pairs of eyes, some cringing, some with vestiges of boldness, some favor-currying, sought his, and twenty pairs of hands ceased work as when power is shut off from as many machines. Blizzard's eyes passed slowly over the girls in a sort of appraising review, once, and a second time.