"I'm not in the habit of bluffing, Wade." McAllister's jaw was set as he patted the edge of the table for emphasis. "I'm responsible to the public and I tell you both right now that as sure as you're born—— Ah, good-evening, Miss Lawson," he finished, rising to his feet with a smile.
McAllister busied himself, clearing a space on the table for the tray she was carrying, and from beneath his shaggy brows the railroad president's shrewd eyes carried a glint of amusement at the evident relief with which the editor welcomed the interruption. A moment more and McAllister might have committed himself to a rash statement.
"And how goes the battle, Cristy? Who won the latest bun fight?" smiled Wade by way of making conversation. "Have you persuaded your father——?"
"Indeed I have not," interrupted Cristy with an exaggerated pout. She looked directly at Ben Wade and frowned, as if the subject were one about which she would rather not be teased even by an old family friend of long and intimate standing. "It is too mean for anything! If, as Mr. McAllister has been good enough to intimate, I am capable of big successes in newspaper work, is it right to hold me back from the necessary experience? To hear Daddy talk you'd think I was a little child——"
"Cristy!" reproved Nat Lawson quietly.
"But I ask you, Mr. Wade, is it fair——?"
"Your father knows best, my child. He probably has good reasons——"
"I do not approve of you working on the night staff. I must ask you not to refer to this matter again. We will not discuss it now, please."
"Allow me to give you another cup of cocoa, Mr. McAllister?"
"Thank you, but I must be getting along," said McAllister, glancing hurriedly at his watch. "I have stayed later than I intended, thanks to the side-tracking of yon railroad president."