This evening Salome looked in upon them, and asked Villard if he could give her a few moments after the class.
“I shall be very glad,” he replied. “I have been working up the idea you spoke about the other day, and wanted to talk with you about it.”
“The profit-sharing scheme?” asked Salome. “That’s just what I wanted to speak of. It seems to me we ought, now, at the beginning of the year, to get it into manageable shape, and tell the men, so that they may know what to expect. I will be in the reception-room when your class is through.”
Much as Villard was interested in his work the remaining hour dragged a little. The prospect of a quiet tête-à-tête with Salome, even on so unromantic a subject as profit-sharing, was too alluring.
But, at last, he found himself face to face with her, and for a few moments forgot all else in the pleasure of listening to her voice and watching the curve of her chin and mobile lips, as she talked of immaterial things.
“And now, what kind of a plan have you formulated as to the profit-sharing?” she asked, after a little.
“Profits—oh, yes,” said Villard, suddenly brought to himself. “I have examined all the accounts of such experiments in foreign countries, and tried to remember the differing conditions and better wages here. I have prepared a rough draft of a circular which I thought perhaps you might like to send out among the hands. Do you want to see it?”
“Of course,” was the answer.
“I don’t pretend it is complete, you know,” he went on, drawing a folded paper from his inner pocket. “It is only an abstract, but—here it is.”
“Read it to me, please,” said Salome.