"Be sure to put my bag in the car when John drives you in," said Armstrong, after the meal was over and he was leaving. "Have him bring you to the office about six, and we'll get dinner somewhere before the train leaves. Good-by, lady!"
In their parting kiss at the door there was a new tenderness, born of the knowledge lying in their hearts.
All the way to town that knowledge kept pounding at Armstrong's brain. His first awe and fear passed into a burning joy. Little by little, he began to visualize how from this minute everything was changed, how his plans and Dorothy's must be made to conform with greater events, how their whole scheme of things must be brought to defer to the arrival of this welcome guest.
Armstrong was quite determined on one thing. He must expend every energy to insure Dorothy's peace of mind during the months to come. Physicians would take care of the body; he must make it his business to see that, when this baby arrived, it should have an heritage of untroubled nerves in the mother, and a peaceful spirit.
"And I'll do it," he told himself. "Thank God, she's got plenty of plain common sense, and doesn't go into hysterics every time a pin falls! She shan't have one troubled thought in the whole time, if I can manage it."
Upon this resolve, he reached his office.
Almost before he had gone through his mail, a memorandum was handed in from the president's office. To his irritated astonishment, Armstrong found this to be a proposal to finance the National Reduction Company—the same turpentine scheme which Findlater had previously broached in vain.
Armstrong reached for his desk telephone. "I'd like to see Mr. Findlater at once."
"Mr. Macgowan is with him just now, sir."
"Ask them both to come over to my office."