Upstairs in the fur department Oskar Hedin paused in the act of returning some fox pieces to their place, and greeted the girl who had halted before the tall pier glass to readjust her hat and push a refractory strand of hair into place. "Back again?" he smiled. "And now for the coat!"
"Now for the coat," she repeated. "What kind of a coat do I want, Oskar? I want to try on lots of them. I don't know a thing in the world about furs. All I know is that I've seen some I liked, and some that I didn't care much for."
For half an hour Jean tried on coats, until her choice had narrowed down to a handsome dark baum marten, and a shimmery gray squirrel.
"I think they're both lovely, and I can't quite make up my mind," she said at last, in a tone of mock despair. "It's worse than picking out toboggan caps. I just helped Mr. Wentworth select one—and, oh, by the way, I believe dad is going to find a place for him."
"For who?" asked Hedin, and Jean noticed tiny wrinkles gather between his eyes.
"Why, for Mr. Wentworth, of course. You see, I told dad that he'd just lost his position with that old Nettle River thing they were trying to put through, and Dad said if he was a civil engineer, and out of a job, to tell him to drop in and see him, so I took him in and introduced him and I guess they're still talking."
"Humph," grunted Hedin.
"You don't need to be so grumpy about it. Mr. Wentworth is awfully nice, and all the girls are crazy about him."
"I don't think that gives you any call to rave much over him when it was Fred Orcutt that brought him here, and he brought him for no other purpose than to knife your father," replied Hedin dryly.
Jean laughed. "You take Dad too seriously. He really believes Mr. Orcutt has it in for him, and he sees an ulterior motive in everything he does in a business way. But, really, the Orcutts are all right. There was some business deal, years and years ago, in which Dad fancied Mr. Orcutt tried to get the best of him, and he has never forgotten it. You see, Dad is the dearest thing that ever lived, but he is sort of crusty, and it isn't everybody that knows how to take him. Why, Mr. and Mrs. Orcutt are going to be at dinner this evening, and are going to the theatre, too. They know it is my birthday party, so that doesn't look as though they were such fierce enemies of the McNabbs, does it?