"Mr. Hendrie is home, ma'am," he said. "He's in the office, awaiting your return."
Monica sprang to the ground with an exclamation which, even to the well-trained footman, conveyed something of her feelings, and ran into the house. In a moment, almost, she was in her husband's arms, and returning his caresses.
"I made home sooner than I hoped, Mon," he said, the moment of their greeting over.
The woman's smiling eyes looked up into his face.
"Yes. And I'm so glad. You said not until Thursday next, and this is only Saturday. You were full of a tremendous business in your letter last Tuesday. Something you couldn't trust to paper."
The man smiled, but his powerful features wore that set look which Monica had long ago learned to understand meant the machine-like working of the brain behind it on some matter which occupied his whole attention.
"That's it," he said, in his sparing manner when dealing with affairs. "Trust."
"Trust?" Monica echoed the word, her eyes widening with inquiry.
Hendrie nodded.
"This has been a secret I've kept—even from you," he said. "From the moment you promised to be my wife, why, I just determined to turn all my wheat interests into one huge trust. I determined to organize it, and become its president for a while. After it's good and going—maybe I'll retire from active service and—just hand over the rest of my life to you, and to those things which are, perhaps, more worth doing—than—than, well, growing wheat."