“Well, then, Grant,” said the woman as the car jangled its way down Market Street, “hurrah for the revolution.”
She smiled up at him, and they rode without speaking until they reached South Harvey. He left her at the door of her kindergarten, and a group of young girls, waiting for her, surrounded her.
488When he reached his office, he found Violet Hogan working at her desk.
“You’ll find all your mail opened, and I’ve noted the things that have been attended to,” she said, as she turned to him. “I’m due over to the girls’ class with Miss Laura–I’m helping her to-night with her picnic.”
Grant nodded, and fell to his work. Violet went on:
“The letters for your signature are here on my desk. Money seems to be coming in. New local showing up down in Magnus–from the tile works.” She rose, put on her coat and hat, and said as she stood in the door, “To-morrow will be your day in–won’t it?” He nodded at his work, and she called out, “Well,–bye, bye–I’ll be in about noon.”
Daylight faded and he turned on the electric above his desk and was going over his work, making notations on letters for Violet, when he heard a footstep on the stairs. He recognized the familiar step of Henry Fenn.
“Come in–come in, Henry,” cried Grant.
Fenn appeared, saw Grant at his work, slipped into a chair, and said:
“Now go right on–don’t mind me, young man.” Fenn pulled a newspaper from his cheap neat coat, and sat reading it, under a light that he made for himself at Violet’s desk. The light fell on his thin whitening hair–still coarse, and close cropped. In his clean, washed-out face there was the faded glow of the man who had been the rising young attorney thirty years before. Grant knew that Fenn did not expect the work to stop, so he went on with it. “I’m going to supper about eight o’clock,” said Grant, and asked: “Will that be all right?”