“Billee!” She laughed and suddenly hid her face.

“What a boy it is, still!” She looked up shyly. “No, King, when you are your own man and successful and other men speak your name with admiration and you are so secure in your field you can marry whom you please, even a girl who has done menial work—if you want me then, I will come to you, and the flat, if you want a flat. Till then, it’s—just sweethearts.”

“Wait, then, until my office building is up,” he said, trying to disguise by affected gayety how he was touched. “Art glass was only my struggle for a foothold. I am by education an architect.”

“Your office building! Who is it for?”

“John Throckmorton. But he doesn’t know it yet.”

“John Throckmorton, the banker?” Billee gurgled and gasped. Then she suppressed a little scream and stared wildly.

“Yes, the plans are all ready.”

“Has he seen them?”

“No; there’s the hitch. He has only talked about a thirty-five story building out in Chicago, a trust fund investment. So far it has been impossible to break through the guard around him. Harvard couldn’t do it.”

She was silent a long moment, with parted lips, still staring at him.

“Listen, King. Do you believe in premonitions?”

“Hunches? Yes. Terence, my office boy, has one every time there is a big game on up at the park, and he needs somebody to finance him. They never fail.”

“I have one now. Try again—for my sake, won’t you?”

“For your sake, I’ll camp on Throckmorton’s trail like a poor relation. What time has your premonition selected?”

“To-morrow at twelve o’clock.”

“Sounds more like lunch than hunch.”

“Send your card in at twelve. Will you?”

 Prev. P 26/39 next