Part 16 (1/2)

Looking again, he lightly dabbed at the eye. ”Oh!” breathed Helen.

”Don't, Wally!”

She took hold of his hand as though to stop him. Mary pa.s.sed on without saying anything, her nose rather high in the air.

Half way down the hill she laughed at nothing in particular.

”Yes,” she told herself. ”Helen--in her own way--I guess that she's a little Hustler ... too ...!”

CHAPTER XVI

The meeting was held in Mary's office--the first conference of directors she had ever attended. By common consent, Uncle Stanley was chosen chairman of the board. Judge Cutler was appointed secretary.

Mary sat in her chair at the desk, her face nearly hidden by the flowers in the vase.

It didn't take the meeting long to get down to business.

”From last year's report,” began the judge, ”it is evident that we must have a change of policy.”

”In what way?” demanded Uncle Stanley.

Whereupon they joined issue--the man of business and the man of law. If Mary had been paying attention she would have seen that the judge was slowly but surely getting the worst of it.

To stop improvements now would be inviting ruin--They had their hands on the top rung of the ladder now; why let go and fall to the bottom--? What would everybody think if those new buildings stayed empty--?

Uncle Stanley piled fact on fact, argument on argument.

Faint heart never won great fortune--As soon as the war was over, and it wouldn't be long now--Before long he began to dominate the conference, the judge growing more and more silent, looking more and more indecisive.

Through it all Mary sat back in her chair at the desk and said nothing, her face nearly hidden by the roses, but woman-like, she never forgot for a moment the things she had come there to do.

”What do you think, Mary?” asked the judge at last. ”Do you think we had better try it a little longer and see how it works out?”

”No,” said Mary quietly, ”I move that we stop everything else but making bearings.”

In vain Uncle Stanley arose to his feet, and argued, and reasoned, and sat down again, and brought his fist down on his knee, and turned a rich, brown colour. After a particularly eloquent period he caught a sight of Mary's face among the roses--calm, cool and altogether unmoved--and he stopped almost on the word.

”That's having a woman, in business,” he bitterly told himself. ”Might as well talk to the wind. Never mind ... It may take a little longer--but in the end....”

Judge Cutler made a minute in the director's book that all work on improvements was to stop at once.

”And now,” he said, ”the next thing is to speed up the manufacture of bearings.”

”Easily said,” Uncle Stanley shortly laughed.

”There must be some way of doing it,” persisted the judge, taking the argument on himself again. ”Why did our earnings fall down so low last year?”

”Because I can manufacture bearings, but I can't manufacture men,”