“Humor my notion,” urged the chief. “He has been tamed down and I want you to see him. You’ll understand why I believe I can keep him hanging around here till you have nailed things to the cross up-country.”
Craig showed no alacrity, but he allowed Mern to lead him to a small room that was separated from the main office by a ground-glass partition; there was a peephole at one corner of a panel. The director promised to wait there until the interview with Latisan was over. The chief said he would make it short.
Latisan walked in exactly on the stroke of three; after he came up in the elevator he had waited in the corridor, humbly obedient to Mern’s directions as to the hour.
“Nothing doing in that matter to-day, Latisan,” stated the chief, affecting to be busily engaged with papers on his desk. “Try me to-morrow, same time.”
“Very well, sir,” agreed the young man, somberly. In prospect, another twenty-four hours filled with lagging minutes! He had grown to know the hideous torture of such hours in the case of a man who before-time had found the days too short for his needs.
“By the way,” said Mern, still hanging grimly to the desire to find out more about what the matter was with the office’s internal affairs, “did anybody tell you that Miss Jones had returned to New York?”
“I wired to Brophy a few days ago. He said she had come back here, according to what he knew of her movements.”
“You fell in love with her, didn’t you?” The chief’s tone was crisp with the vigor of third-degree abruptness.
“Yes,” admitted Latisan, showing no resentment; he had promulgated that fact widely enough in the north.
“Just why did she urge you so strongly to go back to the drive?” The young man’s meekness had drawn the overeager chief along to an incautious question.