She came in, shedding the rain from her mackintosh like a water-fowl, radiant with health and the air of outdoors.
“Gentlemen,” said she gaily, “who but myself would come out in anything but a diving-suit to-day!”
“It’s almost an even thing,” said Jim, “between a calamity, which brings you, and good fortune, which keeps you away. I hope it’s only your ordinary defiance of the elements.”
“The fact is,” said she, “that it’s a very funny errand. But don’t laugh at me if it’s absurd, please. It’s about Mr. Cornish.”
“Yes!” said Jim, “what of him?”
“You know papa has been kept in by la grippe for a day or so,” she went on, “and we haven’t been allowing people to see him very much; but Mr. Cornish has been in two or three times, and every time when he went away papa was nervous and feverish. To-day, after he left, papa asked—” here she looked at Mr. Elkins, as he stood gravely regarding her, and went on with redder cheeks—“asked me some questions, which led to a long talk between us, in which I found out that he has almost persuaded papa to—to change his business connections completely.”
“Yes!” said Jim. “Change, how?”
“Why, that I didn’t quite understand,” said Antonia, “except that there was logwood and mahogany and Mexico in it, and—and that he had made papa feel very differently toward you. After what has taken place recently I knew that was wrong—you know papa is not as firm in his ideas as he used to be; and I felt that he—and you, were in danger, somehow. At first I was afraid of being laughed at—why, I’d rather you’d laugh at me than to look like that!”
“You’re a good girl, Antonia,” said Jim, “and have done the right thing, and a great favor to us. Thank you very much; and please excuse me a moment while I send a telegram. Please wait until I come back.”
“No, I’m going, Albert,” said she, when he was gone to his own office. “But first you ought to know that man told papa something—about me.”