Dround was not at the office the next morning: they telephoned from his house that he was ill. Worry, perhaps, had brought on one of his nervous attacks. Meantime, it was easy to see the effect of Carmichael's loss all over the place. Down to the girls in the mailing room, the force knew that something was wrong with the concern. You can't keep real news from spreading: people are good conductors of electricity; their thoughts leak. In any business, the trouble at the head runs all along the line to the office boys.
Later in the day there came a message from Mr. Dround asking to see me at his house before I went home. It was plain enough what he wanted of me, and I disliked the coming interview. For I should have to tell him that I had decided to desert to his enemies. There was no other way, as I saw it. And yet it seemed like ingratitude. That was what his wife would think, and I saw her looking at me, a scornful smile on her lips. However, this was no matter for sentiment. If her husband had been another sort of man,—if he had any dare in him,—it might have been worth while to try a fall with Carmichael and Strauss. But as it was, I felt no desire to follow a funeral. Maybe she would understand....
As I turned into the avenue near Dround's house there was a fresh little breeze from the lake, blowing the smoke away from the city and cooling the air after the warm day. It was quiet and peaceful on the broad avenue—a very different kind of place from the dirty Yards whence I had come. It made me feel all the more that Dround didn't belong in Packington.
I sat waiting some time for Mr. Dround, and was growing impatient when his wife came into the room.
"Mr. Dround is engaged with his doctor," she said. "Won't you step into the garden with me?"
Behind the house, hidden from a cross street by a brick wall, was a little green lawn with one old willow tree. It was a pretty, restful kind of place, hardly to be looked for so near the heart of the city. In one corner there was a stone bench and some chairs, and a table with books and tea things. Across the top of the wall one could see a line of gray where the horizon met the lake.
"Pleasant place!" I exclaimed, looking across the little garden out to the lake.
"Yes, it makes the city in summer tolerable."
Her eyes followed mine as they rested on a bit of marble, old and sculptured with yellow figures, that had been set into the wall.
"I brought that from Siena," she explained. "It was in an old wall there. It reminds me of Italy," she added, touching the marble lightly with her fingers.