Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/226

Rh "At Phil Westgate's office. You must come up, Barry. It won't take ten minutes, and I'm sure you can spare me that much time. Besides, it's a matter of very serious importance to you. Please come right away."

Evidently Barry yielded, for she said, after a brief interval of silence:

"Thank you so much! I'll wait right here."

She hung up the receiver, and went and sat on the window ledge and looked down into the street. She saw Barry as he turned the corner and crossed over toward the office building. When he entered the room a moment later she drew him mysteriously to a bench in a corner.

"No," she said, in reply to Barry's question, "I can't tell you what it is; not until we see Phil. I know you'll be surprised, and maybe you'll be shocked, and I want you to have the benefit of Phil's judgment on it at once."

But Phil was still engaged. Other clients had come, in the meantime, to see him, and were sitting about the anteroom waiting. Barry tapped the floor with the toe of his shoe impatiently.

"I can't sit around here all the morning," he said. "I've got work to do down at the office; important work. You must realize, Jane, that I'm vice-president of the company and that all matters of magnitude pass through my hands."

"I'm sure it can't be much longer, Barry. Those people have been in there now, to my certain knowledge, at least half an hour."

But he was still ill at ease, and finally he went over to the telephone girl, and asked her to call in to Westgate that Mr. Barry Malleson and Miss Chichester were waiting to see him, and that Mr. Malleson was in great haste. Word came back immediately that Westgate would see them in a moment. And it was really less than five minutes when his door opened and Judge