Was that it?"
Then Caleb understood the challenge in his friend's voice. He thought
he understood. The names of the stockholders of the Reserve Company
were all strange to Caleb save one. The Honorable Archibald
Wickersham, who was said to represent huge foreign interests, he had
known as a boy. And Caleb had seen Dexter indescribably sore, before
this, from having overlooked, as he termed it himself, "a sure thing
bet." He laughed, more like his placid self again.
"Bless you, no!" he exclaimed. "What have I ever done to make you
believe that a mere commercial estimate would remain with me this long?
It--it was something that you said concerning the making of a
gentleman. I just wondered if you were of your early way of thinking.
I wondered if you would consider that--that----"
Allison lay back in his chair and breathed deeply, slowly--and Miss
Sarah appeared that moment in the doorway, pinker of cheek and more
tremulous of lip than her brother had ever seen her before. She
dropped Allison an old-fashioned curtsy, which was an exceedingly
frivolous performance for Sarah.
"Breakfast is served, Cal," she fairly chortled, "and there are two
very hungry children inside."
CHAPTER VII
HARRIGAN, THAT'S ME!
Never before had the air of that long, paneled room been so surcharged
with half-suppressed hilarity. At first her father merely scowled at
Barbara's intermittent little gurgles, which refused to stay entirely
pent-up; he frowned at her seemingly inane interruptions of the
technical discussion into which he had immediately plunged with the
East Coast Company's engineer, until he could no longer ignore the
smile which pulled at the lips of the latter, too, at every fresh
attempt of the girl to swing the conversation into an utterly
irrelevant channel.
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