He mounted the steps heavily and stood contemplating the small hand still within the larger, browner one.
"The introductions seem to have outstripped me," he remarked, "but—er—any objection to shaking hands with me, too, Mr. O'Mara?"
Stephen laughed aloud. Allison's attempted lugubrity was really funny. From the door Barbara echoed his laughter in bubbling, throaty amusement at it all.
"Poor, blind papa!" she chanted mockingly, and disappeared on swift feet.
Allison scowled after her.
"Not so blind as some—the unprincipled jade!" he retorted. "But that's another thing I've heard about you, Mr. O'Mara, if you will pardon a garrulous old gossip's personalities. They tell me that you aren't particularly—susceptible?"
And then the bantering tone was dropped entirely. In the rest of Allison's greeting was all that Caleb found most lovable in the man's whole make-up—his proneness to accept men as men, for what they had done or might do, in a man's world.
"I've heard much of you, Mr. O'Mara; I've looked forward to this meeting," he said, as he shook hands. "Now I want to tell you that I am proud to know you. And so you didn't get my message, after all?"
The handclasp left Allison staring ruefully at his reddened fingers. Steve shook his head.
"I had to come down river, yesterday," he explained. "Your telegram found me here, and I waited over until this morning, as you suggested."