Wayne was at home, and he and Wingfield were teaching Walsh to play golf, and Pittsburg had hardly seen anything funnier than this. Colonel Craighill, who was quite himself again, was with Mrs. Craighill in the Berkshires, at a point convenient to Williamstown, where there was to be a meeting of the executive committee of Something or Other a little later. People had been saying lately that the Colonel was a different man, now that Wayne had given up his evil ways; but Dick Wingfield changed the subject when Wayne’s reformation was broached. He declared that Colonel Craighill would be in the poor-house if Tom Walsh had not fished him out of bankruptcy. But Dick’s opinions were coloured by his prejudices; and besides, he never knew what Wayne did for his father at Walsh’s behest.
John Blair was staying at the Country Club, while the house was out of commission, and Mrs. Blair joined him in his office in the Craighill Building for the motor flight to Rosedale. On the second afternoon following her descent she broke in upon her husband at midday, ostensibly to go to luncheon with him in the ladies’ cafe of the Allequippa, but as he begged her not to disturb the open volumes that bristled on the tables and chairs of his private room, he was aware of a new light in her eye. It was hardly twelve o’clock, and Fanny did not usually care for luncheon. Blair made a place for her, and waited.
“Jean Morley’s coming. She’ll be in at four o’clock. Poor girl! She’s been out in New Mexico in all this heat, doing pictures of Indians. I’ve been wiring her aboard trains for two days to meet me here, and I just now heard from her.”
Blair carefully marked his place in “Dillon on Municipal Corporations” and sighed.
“So that’s it, is it Fanny? I wondered what on earth brought you to town just now.”
“What are you talking about!” she demanded.
John McCandless Blair received large sums from corporations for anticipating the movements of their enemies. His wife’s complex mental processes did not baffle him. They were, however, excellent practice, and they amused him.
“Oh, I see Wayne’s finish now if you’re going to pull the girl off the train here and bring them together. Which one of your protégées is this Jean—the pretty manicurist with the short upper lip you wanted to make a harpist of, or that interesting Swedish girl you launched in the delicatessen business? The manicurist was pleasing to the eye—I won’t deny that she affected me strongly; but I hope it isn’t the Swede. Her creditors still pursue me.”
“You’re so unsympathetic, John. You know Jean Morley well enough. You told me yourself you thought her wonderfully interesting—and Mr. Richardson says she will go far.”
“I dare say she will, Fanny. And now we’re to have her in the family, I hope she’ll be a good sister to me.”