“I might find a use for it. . . . I believe Miss Walters has ambitions to be a real star with her own theater. That is more chic these days than owning a copper mine, and she will need occupation.”
“So that was another of your reasons for this call?” Brainard suggested with a laugh.
Hollinger smiled.
“She might take you on as manager—how would that do?”
“I’ll discuss it with her personally, when the time comes!”
“I shall advise her to let you manage the mine instead!” Hollinger retorted, after listening to another of Farson’s rather flamboyant periods. “I think she and I have better notions of what the ‘People’ like.”
With a last smile he slowly sauntered towards the exit, where he paused long enough to catch a few more of the speeches in Her Great Adventure, which seemed to cause him unhappiness.
“Oh, Lord!” he murmured, and rushed for the door.
XV
As the big, pot-bellied steamship was being slowly pushed into her berth, Brainard, standing at the end of the pier, fancied that he could recognize two little figures on the upper deck. These feminine figures, rather eccentrically dressed, were evidently the knot of a laughing, joking circle of American men, all exhilarated by their approaching return to their beloved city. When the great black hull threw its shadow over the dock, one of the little figures waved both arms.