Tom looked puzzled, but good-naturedly turned the car. Robin climbed out with amazing speed.
"Take me to his office, oh, please take me," she begged, with such earnestness that Tom wondered if she'd gone "clean dotty."
Inside the office building there was no sign of Adam Kraus, for the reason, though Robin did not know it, that it was his second visit; he was there by appointment, and he had used a stairway that led directly to Mr. Granger's office, while Tom took Robin through the main office where a neatly dressed girl blocked their way.
Mr. Granger was busy but the young lady could wait, this efficient young person informed them, quite indifferent to the fact that she addressed Thomas Granger and Gordon Forsyth. And Robin walked into an enclosure, half consulting room, half waiting room, and sat down with fast beating heart, upon a leather and mahogany chair.
"I'll wait out here 'til you see Dad," Tom told her, to her relief, and she heard him telling one of the clerks how his "baby" could make sixty as easy—
Suddenly Robin took in other voices, one deep, one soft and drawling. A door at the end of the room stood half-open. She leaned toward it, alertly listening.
"And you say this invention is your own, Kraus? Have you your patents?"
"My applications have all gone in and I have some of the patents. Yes, sir, it's my own."
"Doran reported very favorably. With one or two changes—suppose we find Doran, now." There came the sound of a chair scraping backward. "Oh, the model will be quite safe here. I want Doran to point out one or two things on our new loom. It will only take a moment. Then we'll bring him back here."
Oh, would they come out through the waiting-room—thought Robin, shrinking back. And what had Adam Kraus said?