Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/27

Rh you have at home, while I dawdled. Now I'm through!"

"I knew I could trust you," she breathed, and though the voice was very gentle and sweet it possessed a quality which indicated that she had arrived at that trust only after difficulties—and perhaps she was not yet sure. It made the man start and repeat his promise, lips against her cheek, determination hot and not to be questioned.

Their hands met in a clasp of good will, and Taylor again pressed his kisses upon her lips and throat, and all the time her eyes were open, fixed on space, as though she listened for some word, waited for some thought—unshaken by his burst of passion.

They drove home slowly, John at the wheel, Marcia snuggled against him, her arm over his shoulder. Halfway in she said:

"John, don't you sometimes think Phil Rowe is awfully close to your father? Almost dangerously close?"

"Dangerously?" he asked with an idle laugh. "I think Phil's safe enough."

"I don't mean that—Dangerously for you. He seems to have a better grasp on your father's affairs than any one."

"Oh, I see—Of course, father leaves all the details to him, and Phil's a mighty competent chap for an underling."

"He doesn't strike me as an underling."

John chuckled. "He calls himself father's secretary, which of course he is. Father—insists on calling him his bookkeeper."

Marcia's laugh was most perfunctory. "He's the sort of chap who would take a lot of ridicule and wait for the last laugh. He—seems so tenacious."