“I must insist!” cried Hy, on his feet now. He was thinking—“What has she told him? What does she know? What does she know!”
“Sit down!” said Doctor Wilde.
Hy sat down. His chief moved the mission house a trifle to square it with the edge of the desk.
“To mention only one occasion,” went on the doctor's voice—“though many are known to me, I am well informed regarding the sort of life you are known to be leading. You see, Mr. Lowe, you must understand that the office atmosphere of My Brother's Keeper is above reproach. Ability alone will not carry a man here. There are standards finer and truer than—”
A rhetorical note was creeping into the man's voice. He turned instinctively to sec if Miss Hardwick was catching the precious words as they fell from his lips; then with his eyes on her empty chair he floundered.
The telephone rang. Hy, with alacrity grown out of long practise in fending for his chief, reached for it.
“Oh, Mr. Lowe—” It was the voice of the pretty little telephone girl: “It's a lady! She simply won't be put off! Could you—”
“Tell him,” said Hy with cold solemnity, “that I am in an important Conference.”
“I did tell her that, Mr. Lowe.”
“Very well—ask him to leave his number. I can not be disturbed now.”