“My dear,” she said, “you would never guess what has happened, so I won’t ask you to try. I wonder what you will think of it. Mr. Dale is going to ask you—has asked you to go into his business—to become one of his partners.”
“Asked me?”
“Yes. It seems you made a good impression on him from the first—especially the last evening when you sat up together. It came about through Mrs. Dale, I think. That is, Mr. Dale has been looking about for some time for what he calls the right sort of man to take in, for one of his partners has died recently and the business is growing; and Mrs. Dale seems to have had us on her mind because she had got it into her head that we were dreadfully poor. I don’t think she has at all a definite idea of what your occupation is. But the long and short of it is her husband wants you. He told me so himself in black and white, and you will receive a letter from him within a day or two.”
“Wants me to become a broker?”
“A banker and broker.”
“And—er—give up my regular work?”
Edna nervously smoothed out the lap of her dress as though she realized that she might be inflicting pain, but she raised her steady eyes and said with pleasant firmness:
“You would have to, of course, wouldn’t you? But Mr. Dale explained that you would be expected to keep a special eye on the mechanical and scientific interests of the firm. He said he had told you about them. So all that would be in your line of work, wouldn’t it?”
“I understand—I understand. It would amount to nothing from the point of view of my special field of investigation,” he answered a little sternly. “What reply did you make to him, Edna?”
“I merely said that I would tell you of the offer; that I didn’t know what you would think.”