The midnight shower had cooled the air, and Storm reached his office early, determined to conclude the formalities there in as short order as possible. He found Sherwood awaiting him, and they put in a busy morning over the transfer of the books and files. He listened in a sort of grim apathy to the kindly expressions of good-wishes for the pleasure and benefit which his vacation might bring to him, took leave of his associates, shook the flabby hand of Nicholas Langhorne and made his escape.
At last! He was through! Through forever with the dull grind, the hypocritical sympathy of his colleagues, the maddening patronage of that pompous old millionaire, who hadn’t one-tenth of the brains, the genius that was his! How little they had known him through all those years; how little they suspected that this brief vacation would be extended for a lifetime, that he had shaken the sanctimonious dust of that most aristocratic institution from his feet forever!
He had laid his plans in that long hour before sleep came to him, and now he hurried to the nearest telegraph office, sent off several despatches and then called up George.
“Say!” that individual expostulated over the wire. “How on earth are we going to start on Monday if you don’t make up your mind where you want to go? I expected to hear from you all day yesterday——”
“That’s all right; I’ve fixed it!” Storm responded. “Come up to my rooms to-night. I’ll have Homachi give us a little dinner and we can talk over the final arrangements then.”
“Did you get those bass flies?” demanded George.
“No. I will, this afternoon.”
“Well, have you sent word out to MacWhirter to have your fishing gear brought in? How about your clothes? Will he know what to pack?” George’s tone was filled with an anxious solicitude that was almost ludicrously maternal. “You needn’t bother about mourning up there, you know; you’ll want the oldest clothes you’ve got, and your hip boots, and don’t forget about that rod——”
“I know, I—I’ll attend to it,” stammered Storm. “Come up about seven, will you?”
He rang off, his mind in a quandary. George had known nothing of MacWhirter’s defection, but his words had reminded the other that the house at Greenlea was locked up and there was no one to pack up his fishing gear unless he went out and did it for himself. He could not send Homachi, who would not know where to find anything, and the thought of telephoning to one of the neighbors of the Greenlea colony and enlisting their aid was out of the question; they, male or female, would like nothing better than a chance to go through the house unmolested and pry into every detail of the home which had been so tragically broken up.