Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/186



ENRY'S was a big office now; it occupied all one corner of the third floor of the Boland Building. His staff had grown rapidly; there were stenographers, and there were clerks, with two or three gray-headed old diggers into the law to look up his points for him. On the morning after love's bright field-day, every face greeted him, it seemed, with knowing welcome as he passed through the outer offices to sit down in the big swivel chair before the wide and polished desk at which he began swiftly to dispose of those matters which Sergeant Thorpe had placed upon it.

In half an hour he was ready to receive callers. Poised, confident, smiling, he took up the first card which the office boy brought in and, as he read, the smile brightened for upon it was engraved in neat and proper script:

"Show her in!" Henry directed, thrilling with delightful anticipations.

But something was the matter with the girl. When barely within the room, she halted, white and tense, the black eyes big and burning as with some sort of accusation.

"Why—Lahleet!" protested Henry.

"Did you know that there was oil on the Shell Point