He was tall, full-chested and tremendously athletic of figure and poise, with dark eyes that fascinated rather than attracted and a bearing of confidence begotten of five years of triumphal success in business ventures and real-estate transactions; a man to whom men would look in a crisis; a man whom most men obeyed instinctively and one to whom women felt drawn although deep down in their hearts they were strangely afraid of him.
He held Eileen with his eyes.
“There is something I wish to ask you some day, Eileen. May I?”
“Nothing serious, I hope, Mr. Brenchfield?” she returned lightly, for she at least had never acknowledged any submission to those searching eyes of his. “And please remember, it is past midnight. My father isn’t here.”
“Serious!––yes!” he returned, ignoring her admonition, “but some day will do.”
“It is an old story;––some day may never come, good sir!”
He smiled indulgently.
Eileen, despite her apparent unconcern, placed her hand over her heart as if to stay a fluttering there.
Mayor Brenchfield was a young man, a successful man; to many women he would have been considered a desirable man.