"Do come over this evening for some music," she begged. "You can take a nap this afternoon, and you can go home early."
Keith had been just a little uneasy over this second interview with Mrs. Morrell. His straightforward nature was inclined to look back on the impression she had made on him at the supper party with a half-guilty sense of some sort of vague disloyalty he could not formulate. Now he felt much satisfied with himself, and quite relieved. Therefore, he accepted.
"I shall be very glad to," said he.
At breakfast, which was rather late, he told Nan of the meeting and the invitation. Nan's clear lines, fresh creamy skin, bright young eyes, looked more than usually attractive to him.
"Perhaps she can play," he said. "Let's go find out. And you must wear your prettiest gown; I'm proud of my wife, and I want her to look her very best."
A little later he remarked:
"I wonder if she isn't considerably older than Morrell."
XVI
When he had at last reached downtown after his late breakfast, Keith found it in a fair turmoil. Knots of men stood everywhere arguing, sometimes very heatedly. Eureka members were openly expressing their anger over what they called Taylor's "dirty trick" in putting hirelings on the brakes, men who did not belong to the Monumental organization at all. If it had not been for that the Monumentals could never have "sucked" at all. On the other hand, the Monumentals and their friends were vehemently asserting that they were well within their rights. Fists were brandished. Several fights started, but were stopped before they had become serious.
Keith avoided these storm centres, waving a friendly hand, but smilingly refusing to be drawn in. Near the Merchants' Exchange, however, he came on a quieter, attentive group, in the centre of which stood Calhoun Bennett. The Southerner's head was thrown back haughtily, but he was listening with entire courtesy to a violent harangue from a burly, red-faced man in rough clothes.