Rodrigo wisely did not suggest further tarrying amid the Broadway lights, and, starting their long taxi ride back to Brooklyn, both Mary and he were very cheerful and feeling very kindly indeed toward each other and the world. And yet he did not make love to her, though she sat as close to him as had Sophie Binner in a similar taxi. There was a light in Mary's eye as she turned to him that he was almost awed to see. As they drew up to her door, he told himself, with thumping heart, that she would not resent it if he kissed her. Yet he helped her from the taxi with almost too much politeness and stood at the door of her rather antiquated brownstone house as she slipped in her key.
"I would invite you in to meet my mother, Rodrigo," she said, "but she is probably asleep. You will come some other time?"
"I would like to, Mary, very much," he replied.
He shook her hand and held it while she thanked him for a very nice time. Then he turned, the door closed, and she was gone.
During the next few days he made no effort to press the advantage he had won in establishing their relations upon a more personal basis. Mary would not like him to, he knew, and he was desperately anxious not to offend her. The affairs of Dorning and Son took him continually into her presence, and he sensed a change in her attitude toward him which she could not conceal. It made him very happy.
On Wednesday of that week, which was the first of June, a matter of vast importance to Rodrigo, a matter of genuine pleasure to both himself and the whole personnel of Dorning and Son, reached its consummation. Rodrigo was made a partner in the firm.
Henry Dorning broke his long confinement at Greenwich by making the trip into New York for the occasion. The papers had been drawn up by Emerson Bates, and the meeting was held in the lawyer's offices, a many-doored domain of thick carpets, glass-topped desks, soft-footed clerks, and vast arsenals of thick books. It was a dignified, congenial ceremony, having seemed to Rodrigo to have the effect of being received into an ancient and honorable order, of becoming a part of the Dorning family, as well as receiving stock in a very lucrative business.
Henry Dorning, looking thinner and whiter than Rodrigo had ever remembered him, but happy and keen-witted, signed the papers and shook hands with his new partner.
"I know you are going to be an even greater asset to Dorning and Son than ever now—in more ways than one," he said, and Rodrigo wondered if the significance of his remark lay in the promise made to broaden John Dorning. Well, there was the tea to Elise Van Zile and her aunt to-morrow. John had promised to be there. Rodrigo had been trying not to look forward to that occasion.
Later in the day, Henry Madison, gray-haired manager of Dorning and Son, whom Rodrigo had learned to respect for his vast knowledge of his job, sought out the new member of the firm, congratulated him, and said cordially, "I am mighty glad about this, Rodrigo. I confess now I was a bit dubious about you when you first came here. Damned narrow-mindedness, that's all. I've long since changed my mind, and I don't know of a man I'd rather be working for than you."