“She will be sure to hop into the yellow and black taxi. I say ‘hop’ for Mrs. Corday is extremely alert. She is positively the most active middle aged woman I have ever known. But her training——” Miss Alton stopped suddenly. She had no need, evidently, to discourse upon the obstreperous stepmother’s training. “But,” she added presently, “it will simplify matters greatly, if you can just meet the train. We shall have to depend upon conciliatory circumstances to attend to the rest. Thank you, dear, and I know I can count upon your discretion.”
A sense of impending gloom gripped Gloria. She felt as if her heart had slipped off a ledge into a pool of thick, murky stuff that it couldn’t beat its way through. She dreaded taking the temperamental woman in hand even temporarily; she longed to have Jane all to herself for a few hours, and she was positively feverish in her anxiety for finishing the essay.
Now, all these hopes must be subservient to Miss Alton’s wishes. But if it saved Jack——
“Be sure to tell me if this little commission interferes with any personal plans,” Miss Alton said at the door, thereby robbing Gloria of even the slight comfort to be had in a rebellious groan. As if she could tell her? And as if she could now complain loudly and thoroughly to Trixy!
She left the office indifferently. So much so that she totally disregarded traffic rules, and with head bent out of the line of vision she ran directly into Mary Mears.
CHAPTER XIV
BALKED AMBITION
The surprise of meeting Mary Mears so suddenly almost took Gloria’s breath away.
“Oh, excuse me, Mary,” she faltered. “Glad you weren’t a lamp post.”
“So am I,” said Mary. “But, Gloria, can I speak to you a moment?”