John made a note. “I ’ll tell him, sir.”
The man was not in good humor. The calm eyes of the young man, and a certain sense of moral inferiority that came upon him, made him restless; and the obvious respect that this young man felt for the President of the “R. and Q.” was not encouraging. But it occurred to the manager suddenly that every man has his price and he drew a little breath of relief, relaxing in his chair.
Ten minutes later, when he took up his hat to go, he could not, for the life of him, have told whether the young man, holding open the door for him, was too stupid or too virtuous to take advantage of a very good offer that had been dangled before him. But he had a distinct impression that he should like to overhear some young man in his employ speak of him as this young man was speaking of Simeon Tetlow.
As he went through the outer room, the manager of the C. B. and L. passed very close to a desk where a bookkeeper was busy with columns of figures. But the manager did not glance that way and the bookkeeper did not lift his busy eyes from the page before him.
XVIII
The typewriters had been reinstalled in the president’s office and John, in the little upper room, was giving the president of the road a detailed account of the preceding day—including the visit from the manager of the C. B. and L.
“That’s good,” said Simeon. “That’s good—as far as it goes.” But his thin face still wore an anxious look and he sat slouched a little forward, his eyes on the floor. The morning’s mail lay on the desk behind him, untouched.
John’s eyes turned to it. “You saw Dr. Blake?”