"Oh, Mr.----," she began. Then, as Merriam took her hand, she stopped short in her sentence, laughed, and said, "Who are you this morning?"
Merriam, whom Alicia always stimulated to play up, bowed over her hand as elegantly as he could and replied:
"Senator Norman, I believe--at your service. Good morning, Miss Norman," he added, politely, to the older woman.
Aunt Mary merely nodded, rather grimly, and turned away as if to inspect Simpson's preparation of the breakfast table. Merriam wondered how much of Simpson's confession Rockwell had found time to report to her.
But Alicia gave him little time for speculation.
"Well, Senator," she rejoined, withdrawing her hand (you were always conscious when Alicia gave her hand and when she withdrew it), "you and the Mayor have made quite a noise in the world this morning. See!"
She displayed the newspaper which she still held in her left hand. It was one of the leading Chicago dailies, which invariably prints one bold black headline across the top of the entire front page. The topic may be a world war or a dog fight, but the headline is always there in the same size and startling blackness of type. This morning it read:
Mayor Black Signs Ordinance
And one of the columns below carried the further head:
The Mayor and Senator Norman
Reported to Have Broken
With Traction Interests