Armstrong hesitated, his eyes averted.
“Yes,” he said at last.
“Good. I’ll attend to the reservations for both of us. Travel East is light now and we’ll have things practically to ourselves. There are a number of other things I wish to talk with you about—and we’ll have all night to do it in. I suppose you’ll see Elice this evening?”
Again Armstrong colored. “Yes,” he repeated uncertainly.
“Tell her, please, for me that I’ll be out of town for about three weeks. Meanwhile the car is subject to her order. I left directions at the garage. If it’s convenient for you to happen around this way about train time there’ll be a cab waiting. Good-bye until then.”
For two hours thereafter Roberts worked steadily—until every scrap of correspondence on the desk had been answered or bore memoranda for the instruction of the stenographer on the morrow. At last he took down the ’phone.
“Randall? There’ll be a carriage call for my baggage shortly. It’s all ready. Thanks. By the way, have you that manuscript handy I spoke to you once about? All right. Tuck it in somewhere while you think of it, please. You’re still of the same opinion, that it’s good; 283 at least worth a hearing? Very well. It’ll be published then. I’m accepting your judgment. Never mind how. This is between you and me absolutely. I’m not to figure—ever. If it goes flat he’ll have had his chance. That’s all any of us can have. By the way, again. I’m sorry to miss Mrs. Randall’s dinner-party. I’m not often honored in that way. Anyway, though, perhaps it’s as well. I’m impossible socially; and, fortunately, I know just enough to realize it. Yes; that’s all. Good-night.”
Thereafter he waited until he got “Central” on the wire.
“Call me at eleven-thirty,” he requested. “I’ll be asleep, so ring me long and loud. Eleven-thirty sharp, remember, please.”
He hung up the instrument with a gesture of relief and leaned back in his chair, his great bushy head against the bare oak, his big hands loose in his lap. A half-minute perhaps he sat so—until the eyes slowly closed and, true to his word, and swiftly as a child at close of day, he fell asleep.