"I can say truly that I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Spearman," he managed.
There was no recognition of anything beyond the mere surface meaning of the words in Spearman's slow smile of acknowledgment, as he turned from Alan to Sherrill.
"I'm afraid you've taken rather a bad time, Lawrence."
"You're busy, you mean. This can wait, Henry, if what you're doing is immediate."
"I want some of these men to be back in Michigan to-night. Can't we get together later—this afternoon? You'll be about here this afternoon?" His manner was not casual; Alan could not think of any expression of that man as being casual; but this, he thought, came as near it as Spearman could come.
"I think I can be here this afternoon," Alan said.
"Would two-thirty suit you?"
"As well as any other time."
"Let's say two-thirty, then." Spearman turned and noted the hour almost solicitously among the scrawled appointments on his desk pad; straightening, after this act of dismissal, he walked with them to the door, his hand on Sherrill's shoulder.
"Circumstances have put us—Mr. Sherrill and myself—in a very difficult position, Conrad," he remarked. "We want much to be fair to all concerned—"