Pearl interrupted him:
"But, Mr. Cowan, even before I went there, there was something wrong. Why wouldn't they give me a boarding place? You thought that I could get a boarding place when you hired me. Come on, Mr. Cowan, you may just as well tell me—it's the easiest way in the end—just to speak out—it saves time. If you ask me not to tell—I won't."
George Cowan did not expect to be cornered up so closely, and in desperation he said what was uppermost in his mind:
"Why don't you take the offer to go to the city, that's a great chance."
He had forgotten to be discreet.
"I am going to," said Pearl quickly, "that's what I came over to tell you—I want to go. I wanted to ask you if it would be all right."
"Now you're talking," cried her trustee gladly—a great burden had been lifted from his heart. "Sure you can go—it would be a, shame for you to miss a chance like this."
In his excitement he hardly knew what he was saying. This was just what he had been hoping would happen. Wouldn't George Steadman be pleased! He had given out a delicate piece of work to be done, and it had been successfully managed.
"You were just fooling us by pretending you were going to board at Mrs. Gray's—weren't you? You knew all the time you were going to the city; You were just playing a joke on us—I know. Well the joke's on us all right, as the cowboys said when they hanged the wrong man."
George Cowan rubbed his hands; the whole world had grown brighter. The political machine was the thing—real team-play—that's what it was. It's hard to beat the machine—and the best of it all was, there was no harm done, and nobody hurt. She would be as safe as a church when she was in the employ of the Government—and in a good job too—away ahead of teaching. No government employee could mention politics. Some people thought women were hard to manage! but it just required a little brains—that was all. Diplomacy was the thing.