Part 38 (1/2)

”Yes.”

”Fan, we're a couple of weaklings, both of us, to have sprung from a mother like ours. I don't know which is worse; my selfishness, or yours.” Then, at the hurt that showed in her face, he was all contrition. ”Forgive me, Sis. You've been so wonderful to me, and to Mizzi, and to all of us. I'm a good-for-nothing fiddler, that's all.

You're the strong one.”

Fenger had telephoned her on Sat.u.r.day. He and his wife were at their place in the country. f.a.n.n.y was to take the train out there Sunday morning. She looked forward to it with a certain relief. The weather had turned unseasonably warm, as Chicago Octobers sometimes do. Up to the last moment she had tried to shake Theodore's determination to take Mizzi and Otti with him. But he was stubborn.

”I've got to have her,” he said.

Michael Fenger's voice over the telephone had been as vibrant with suppressed excitement as Michael Fenger's dry, hard tones could be.

”f.a.n.n.y, it's done--finished,” he said. ”We had a meeting to-day. This is my last month with Haynes-Cooper.”

”But you can't mean it. Why, you ARE Haynes-Cooper. How can they let you go?”

”I can't tell you now. We'll go over it all to-morrow. I've new plans.

They've bought me out. D'you see? At a price that--well, I thought I'd got used to juggling millions at Haynes-Cooper. But this surprised even me. Will you come? Early? Take the eight-ten.”

”That's too early. I'll get the ten.”

The mid-October country was a lovely thing. f.a.n.n.y, with the strain of Theodore's debut and leave-taking behind her, and the prospect of a high-tension business talk with Fenger ahead, drank in the beauty of the wayside woods gratefully.

Fenger met her at the station. She had never seen him so boyish, so exuberant. He almost pranced.

”Hop in,” he said. He had driven down in a runabout. ”Brother get off all right? Gad! He CAN play. And you've made the whole thing possible.”

He turned to look at her. ”You're a wonder.”

”In your present frame of mind and state of being,” laughed f.a.n.n.y, ”you'd consider any one a wonder. You're so pleased with yourself you're fairly gummy.”

Fenger laughed softly and sped the car on. They turned in at the gate.

There was scarlet salvia, now, to take the place of the red geraniums.

The gay awnings, too, were gone.

”This is our last week,” Fenger explained. ”It's too cold out here for Katherine. We're moving into town to-morrow. We're more or less camping out here, with only the j.a.p to take care of us.”

”Don't apologize, please. I'm grateful just to be here, after the week I've had. Let's have the news now.”

”We'll have lunch first. I'm afraid you'll have to excuse Katherine. She probably won't be down for lunch.” The j.a.p had spread the luncheon table on the veranda, but a brisk lake breeze had sprung up, and he was busy now transferring his table from the porch to the dining room. ”Would you have believed it,” said Fenger, ”when you left town? Good old lake. Mrs.

Fenger coming down?” to the man.

The j.a.p shook his head. ”Nossa.”

Their talk at luncheon was all about Theodore and his future. Fenger said that what Theodore needed was a firm and guiding hand. ”A sort of combination manager and slave-driver. An ambitious and intelligent wife would do it. That's what we all need. A woman to work for, and to make us work.”

f.a.n.n.y smiled. ”Mizzi will have to be woman enough, I'm afraid. Poor Ted.”

They rose. ”Now for the talk,” said Fenger. But the telephone had sounded shrilly a moment before, and the omnipresent little j.a.p summoned Fenger. He was back in a minute, frowning. ”It's Haynes. I'm sorry. I'm afraid it'll take a half hour of telephoning. Don't you want to take a cat-nap? Or a stroll down to the lake?”

”Don't bother about me. I'll probably take a run outdoors.”

”Be back in half an hour.”