“I'm going to help the honest crowd in the Vose line management to tip over that sale that was made, and when the right time comes I'll have that white-livered clerk in the witness-box if I have to lug him there by the ears. Now, Mayo, that girl didn't say what was in this packet.” He pulled out a small parcel which had been carefully tied with cords. “She is in love with you, because she must be in love to go to so much trouble in order to get word to you. If this is a love-letter, it's a big one. Seems to be all paper! I have hefted it and felt of it consid'able.”
He held it away from Mayo's eager reach and investigated still more with prodding fingers.
“Hope she isn't sending back your love-letters, son. But by the look she had on her face when she was talking about you to me I didn't reckon she was doing that. Well, here's comfort for you!” He placed the packet in Mayo's hands.
The parcel was sealed with three neat patches of wax, and on each blob was imprinted the letters “A M” in a monogram. Mayo turned the packet over and over.
“If you want me to step out, not feeling as confidential toward me as you used to, I'll do it,” proffered Captain Wass, after a polite wait.
“I'm not going to open this thing—not yet,” declared the young man. “That's for reasons of my own—quite private ones, sir.”
“But I'd just as soon step out.”
“No, sir. Your being here has nothing whatever to do with the matter.” He buttoned the packet into his coat pocket. He had little respect for Fletcher Fogg's delicacy in any question of procedure; the promoter's animus in the matter of those papers was clear. Nevertheless, the agent had crystallized in bitter words an idea which was deterring Mayo: would he take advantage of a girl's rash betrayal of her father? Somehow those seals with her monogram made sacred precincts of the inside of the packet; he touched them and withdrew his hand as if he were intruding at the door which was closed upon family privacy.
“I suppose you'd rather keep your mind wholly on straight business, seeing what a bad position you're in,” suggested Captain Wass. “Very well, we'll put love-letters away and talk about something that's sensible. It's too bad there isn't some tool we could have to pry open that Vose line sell-out. The stockholders got cold feet and slid out from under Vose after the Montana was laid up.”
“What has been done with her?”