"Oh, nothing—just my idle curiosity. Say, there's something you can do for me, like a good fellow, before I go. Give me a knock-down to the lady outside, will you? Didn't know you owned a peach orchard, Blatch? Who is she?"
Ferguson chuckled as he pressed a button.
"Name's Margaret Williams. My regular stenographer was taken sick suddenly the other day and she sent around this friend of hers to substitute. She's a dandy good worker, too. But you're too late, my boy. She's leaving soon to marry a fellow at Buffalo—er—Miss Williams, allow me to present Mr. Philip Kendrick."
Her bow was very formal and as, at her employer's request, she escorted him to the private exit at her own end of the office, her manner was equally cold.
"I hope you bear me no ill will, Miss Williams," smiled Phil. "I assure you I have done nothing to merit it."
"That is for me to judge," she retorted calmly. "Please go. I do not care to know you, Mr. Kendrick."
Phil turned quickly. It was the second time within twelve hours that a girl had told him that—in those very words, with that same disdainful tone. Why, if he were to shut his eyes he felt sure he could imagine it to be the very voice inflection used by his Fog Lady when delivering the same sentence of exile. Again he found himself guilty of staring.
"Have you ever seen a real, honest-to-goodness amulet, Miss Williams?" he asked eagerly, reaching into his pocket. "I'd like to show you mine before I go, if I may." He slowly unfolded the dollar bill and held out the hand-painted blouse pin, watching her closely.
"What a pretty pin!" she said in a flat, disinterested voice. She looked at it perfunctorily. "I know a man who used to carry a potato to chase rheumatism away. It was planted by a one-eyed, left-handed negro, born on the thirteenth of the month. I've heard of an elk's tooth for pleurisy and a rabbit's foot for evil spirits; but a pin like that? It will lead you into danger instead of away from it."
"Not when it is pinned to a canoe cushion by a beautiful girl at the hour of three o'clock in the morning in a dense fog," declared Kendrick significantly.