“But——” stammered Miss Perkins, as she glanced at the unfinished letters.
“I'll call you when I need you,” answered Jimmy gruffly. Miss Perkins left the room in high dudgeon.
“I'LL show them,” said Jimmy to himself, determined to carry out his recent resolve to be firm.
Then his mind wend back to his domestic troubles. “Suppose, that Zoie, after imposing secrecy upon him, should change that thing called her 'mind' and confide in Aggie about the luncheon?” Jimmy was positively pale. He decided to telephone to Zoie's house and find out how affairs were progressing. At the 'phone he hesitated. “If Aggie HAS found out about the luncheon,” he argued, “my 'phoning to Zoie's will increase her suspicions. If Zoie has told her nothing, she'll wonder why I'm 'phoning to Zoie's house. There's only one thing to do,” he decided. “I must wait and say nothing. I can tell from Aggie's face when I meet her at dinner whether Zoie has betrayed me.”
Having arrived at this conclusion, Jimmy resolved to get home as early as possible, and again Miss Perkins was called to his aid.
The flurry with which Jimmy despatched the day's remaining business confirmed both Miss Perkins and Andrew in their previous opinion that “the boss” had suddenly “gone off his head.” And when he at last left the office and banged the door behind him there was a general sigh of relief from his usually tranquil staff.
Instead of walking, as was his custom, Jimmy took a taxi to his home but alas, to his surprise he found no wife.
“Did Mrs. Jinks leave any word?” he inquired from the butler.
“None at all,” answered that unperturbed creature; and Jimmy felt sure that the attitude of his office antagonists had communicated itself to his household servants.
When Jimmy's anxious ear at last caught the rustle of a woman's dress in the hallway, his dinner had been waiting half an hour, and he had worked himself into a state of fierce antagonism toward everything and everybody.