“Your plans for the future?” Elaine repeated, with just a touch of irony in her voice. “More plans of making our fortunes, I suppose?”
Her husband nodded.
“Yes,” he answered. “I know what you think, but you’re wrong this time, as it happens. These plans are the real thing, and I’m going to put them through.”
Elaine shrugged her dainty shoulders.
“I wonder how often I’ve heard that,” she said wistfully. “We’re always going to make our fortunes, but somehow or other something always turns up at the last moment and messes up our schemes.”
“I’ll tell you while we’re having supper,” Max replied. “I haven’t too much time, for I must start in three-quarters of an hour.”
“Start? Where are you going?” his wife asked curiously, as she removed her hat and coat.[Pg 7]
“That doesn’t come until almost the end of the story,” was the answer. “Sit down and you’ll hear it all.”
The girl obeyed wonderingly, and Max began.
“Do you remember,” he said, “that very shortly after I started work at the Marmawell, I told you I had a suspicion that Alfred Knox Atherton was more or less crooked?”