"Named after me. Old man didn't want it named after him; would kill it," he said.
Mr. and Mrs. Field found the hotel quite comfortable and the dinner wholesome. They beamed upon each other.
"It's going to be delightful," they said.
Ridgeley was a bachelor, and found his home at the hotel also. That night he said: "Now we'll go over the papers and records of your uncle's property, and then we'll go out and see if the property is all there. I imagine this is to be a searching investigation."
"You may well think it. My wife is inexorable."
As night fell, the wife did not feel so safe and well pleased. The loud talking in the office below and the occasional whooping of a crowd of mill hands going by made her draw her chair nearer and lay her fingers in her husband's palm.
He smiled indulgently. "Don't be frightened, my dear. These men are not half so bad as they sound."
II.
Mrs. Field sat in the inner room of Ridgeley's office, waiting for the return of her husband with the team. They were going out for a drive.
Ridgeley was working at his books, and he had forgotten her presence.