Kedzie giggled with sheer nervousness at the phrase. But she would not promise.
The door-bell rang, and the maid admitted Jim Dyckman, who had not paused to send his name up by the telephone. While he gave his hat and stick to the maid and peeled off his gloves Kedzie was whispering:
“It's Jim.”
Mrs. Thropp struggled to her feet. “He mustn't find me here,” she said. “Don't tell him about us.”
But before she could escape Dyckman was in the doorway, almost too tall to walk through it, almost as tall as twenty million dollars.
To Mrs. Thropp he was as majestic as the Colossus of Rhodes would have been. Like the Colossus of Rhodes, he was a gilded giant.
CHAPTER XXXV
Kedzie was paralyzed. Mrs. Thropp was inspired. Unity of purpose guided her true. She had told her daughter to ignore Gilfoyle as an unimportant detail. She certainly did not intend to substitute a couple of crude parents as a new handicap.