“No,” she said, in reply to Barry’s question, “I can’t tell you what it is; not until we see Phil. I know you’ll be surprised, and maybe you’ll be shocked, and I want you to have the benefit of Phil’s judgment on it at once.”
But Phil was still engaged. Other clients had come, in the meantime, to see him, and were sitting about the anteroom waiting. Barry tapped the floor with the toe of his shoe impatiently.
“I can’t sit around here all the morning,” he said. “I’ve got work to do down at the office; important work. You must realize, Jane, that I’m vice-president of the company and that all matters of magnitude pass through my hands.”
“I’m sure it can’t be much longer, Barry. Those people have been in there now, to my certain knowledge, at least half an hour.”
But he was still ill at ease, and finally he went over to the telephone girl, and asked her to call in to Westgate that Mr. Barry Malleson and Miss Chichester were waiting to see him, and that Mr. Malleson was in great haste. Word came back immediately that Westgate would see them in a moment. And it was really less than five minutes when his door opened and Judge Bosworth came out followed by Colonel Boston, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. Rapalje.
Miss Chichester’s curiosity was so greatly aroused as to the meaning of this meeting of vestrymen that she came near losing sight, for the moment, of the purpose of her own errand. But when she was once in Westgate’s room with Barry, there was no delay in making the object of her visit known.
“I’ve brought Barry with me,” she said, “because I want him to hear the disclosures I am about to make—they so deeply concern him—and because he will need good, sound advice the moment he hears them.”
For the first time Barry looked worried.
“I don’t know what she’s got up her sleeve, Phil; honest I don’t. I haven’t said a word to her that she could construe as a promise of any kind.”
There was a twinkle in Westgate’s eye.