"Yes, that's about all."
The Vice-President, gazing a trifle uneasily at Smith's departing back, somehow felt that he could not flatter himself on having done what he wished toward the covering of his tracks. But, as it chanced, Mr. O'Connor's elaborate mechanism for befogging his trail was entirely wasted, for the President, so far as could be learned, said not a thing on the subject to anybody. He took home the papers O'Connor had left him, and studied them, presumably alone, for several days. He did not seek to cross-examine O'Connor's witnesses. From something that gentleman had said, he had gained the impression that outside parole evidence would probably be prejudiced, and he felt that the documents in his possession were sufficient to govern his verdict. He conceived that here was a matter for calm, deliberate judgment, for the exercise of the critical, judicial faculty, which he felt he possessed in a high degree. This was not precisely vanity; it was rather the long habit of undisputed dicta. He felt that here was an excellent opportunity for justifying his reputation for independence of decision and action.
So Mr. Wintermuth, pondering in silence for nearly a fortnight, left his Vice-President stretched on the rack of uncertainty without a glance in his direction. To all the tentative efforts O'Connor made to reopen the subject, his chief returned a curt refusal. There was nothing to do but to wait, and O'Connor, with increasingly bad grace, waited.
Not until the close of the second week was his suspense ended, and then not by any intimation from headquarters. Mr. Wintermuth had acted overnight, and had given his verdict directly to the press; and thus it was that the Vice-president, opening one morning the Journal of Commerce to the insurance page, found himself confronted by the headline:—
"Guardian Quits the Conference."
Mr. O'Connor sank back into his chair with a sigh of relief, and carefully read and reread the article from beginning to end. It was very brief, stating simply that Mr. Wintermuth had sent to the Conference the resignation of the Guardian, for "reasons which could be better imagined than discussed," and proposed henceforward to conduct the operations of the company without reference to any "unequally restrictive restrictions."
It was with positive buoyancy that the Vice-president delivered the paper into the hands of Jimmy, for its processional through the office.
CHAPTER XII
It was late afternoon in the drawing room of Miss Wardrop's house in Washington Square. The short November dusk was fading into night, and outside in the old Square, the street lights gleamed in the frosty air. In the fireplace, before which two people were sitting, a wood fire crackled, throwing fantastic shadows about the old room.
Dinner at Miss Wardrop's was at half after seven. Just why Mr. Smith should have considered it necessary to drop in, on his way home from the Guardian, could no doubt have been better explained had his face not been shaded by his hand. The face in the room best worth seeing, however, was not so shaded, and Smith manifested no displeasure at the fact. He himself sat on the chimney seat, and he appeared to be less talkative than usual. His reticence may or may not have been understood by Miss Maitland, but if it were, she chose to pretend otherwise.