Both girls turned and stared at him. The elder turned quite pale.
“What do you mean, talking so?” said she, sharply.
“Nothin', only I thought it was a kind of queer time of year for a man to take a vacation, a man as busy as the boss seems to be. And—it kind of entered my head—”
“If anything entered your head, do, for goodness' sake, hang on to it,” said the pretty girl, pertly. Then her car whirred over the crossing and ground to a standstill, and she sprang on it with a laugh at her own wit. “Good-night,” she called back.
The other two, waiting for another car, were left together. “You don't think Mr. Carroll means to give up business?” the girl said, in a guarded tone.
“Lord, no! Why, he has so much business he can hardly stagger under it, and he must be making money. I was only joking.”
“I suppose he's good pay,” the girl said, in a shamed tone.
“Good pay? Of course he is. He don't keep right up to the mark—none of these lordly rich men like him do—but he's sure as Vanderbilt. I should smile if he wasn't.”
“I thought so,” said the girl. “I didn't mean to say I had any doubt.”
“He's sure, only he's a big swell. That's always the way with these big swells. If he hadn't been such a swell, now, he'd have paid us all off before he took his vacation. But, bless you, money means so little to a chap like him that it don't enter into his head it can mean any more to anybody else.”