Larssen smiled his pleasure. It was a throne-room. He had designed it as such. His private house at Hampstead mattered little to him. His house on Riverside Drive, New York, and his great forest estate in the Adirondacks mattered almost as little. His real home was at the office.
"In my New York office, and in every one of my other offices round the world, there's a room like this. I alone use it. When I'm away, it stands for me. It's my sign."
"Above there," he continued, pointing to the central dome, "is the wireless apparatus which keeps me in touch with my ships. From ship to ship and office to office I can send my orders round the world. I'm independent of the wires and the cables."
"That's epic!" she said, using the word she had used before when he spoke to her of his early career. No other word fitted Lars Larssen so closely.
"Heard from Clifford lately?" he queried.
"Only a brief cable from Winnipeg."
"I had a letter telling me things are going well, but not as quickly as he expected. That letter would be a week old by now. Every moment I'm expecting to hear that his work is put through and sealed up tight."
"I'm not anxious to have him back. If you only could realize how he bores me to extinction."
She waited for an expression of sympathy.
"You've borne with it very bravely," he said, knowing that to a woman like Olive no compliment is dearer than to be called "brave."