Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that, Peter?”
“I mean, oddly enough, exactly what I say. Carey understands from Manders that the mill is on the rocks.”
“But—isn’t the superintendent in a position to know?”
“I’ll say he is!” admitted her son heartily.
She studied his guileless young face for a long moment of silence. “Peter! Do you mean——”
“I shan’t know for certain what I mean until you bring me the expert above mentioned,” he chided her gently, and the Federation President, with a little gasp, hurried from the room the second time that day to do the imperious bidding of her flippant son.
It was on the following Sunday afternoon that Miss Ada Tenafee came fluttering upstairs to tell her protégée that Mr. Peter Parker was calling.
Glen had been sitting in her primly charming chamber with the purple rosebuds and weeping willows and humming birds on the wall, with her hands folded in her lap, looking out of the window at the magnolia tree where a cardinal was making liquid inquiry—“What cheer? What cheer? What cheer?” She stood up quickly and turned a paling face to her friend. “I can’t see him, Miss Ada. I—can’t!”
“Oh, honey, you must!” the spinster urged emotionally. “The chauffeur had to almost carry him up the steps, and the nurse is waiting in the machine, and he looks—he looks—” she choked over it—“like death on a pale horse riding! He says he asks for only five minutes. Glen! You must go down, dearie!”
He was sitting in the Tenafee chair, and when the girl came into the room he got up promptly, but with some difficulty, and he swayed a little as he faced her.