So Eveley looked upon Mr. Hiltze with great friendliness and sympathy, though she did glance up at the National Building as they went by, noticing the light in Nolan's window, wondering if he was working hard--and if the work necessitated the presence of the new, good-looking stenographer the firm had lately acquired.

"Now, my idea of Americanization," Mr. Hiltze was saying when she finally tore her thoughts away from the National Building, "is pure personal effort. You take a club, and mix a lot of nationalities, and types, and interests up together--they work upon one another, and work upon you, and you get nowhere. But take an individual. Get chummy with him. Be with him. Study him. Make him like you--interest him in your work, and your sport, and your life--and there you have an American pretty soon. Club work is not definite, not decisive. It is the personal touch that counts.

You could fritter away hours with a baseball club, and end at last just where you began. But you put the same time into definite personal contact with one individual foreigner--a girl, of course it would be in your case--it is young men in mine. You take a girl--a foreigner--win her confidence, then her interest, then her love--and you've made an American. That is the only Americanization that will stick. Suppose in a whole year you have won only one--still see what you have done. That one will go out among her friends, her relatives, she will marry and have children--and your Americanization is sown and re-sown, and goes on multiplying itself--yes, forever."

"You are right," said Eveley. "And you find me a girl, and I will do it."

"It is a bargain," he said quickly, stopping in the street to grasp her hand. "You are a little thoroughbred, aren't you? It may take time, but as I go about among the young men I work with--well, I am pretty sure to find a girl among them."

CHAPTER X

THE ORIGINAL FIXER

"Oh, Nolan," came Eveley's voice over the telephone, in its most wheedling accent, "I am so sorry to spoil our little party for to-night, but it is absolutely necessary just this once. The most utterly absurd case of painful duty you ever heard of. And although you do not exactly approve of my campaign, you would simply have to agree with me this time.

And--"

"Well, since I can't help it, I can stand it," he said patiently. "What is it this time? Some silly woman finding it her duty to house and home all straying and wounded cats, or a young girl determined to devote her life to the salvation of blue-eyed plumbers, or--"

"It is a man," she interrupted, rather acidly.

"Ah," came in guarded accents.

There was silence for a tune.

"A man," he repeated encouragingly, though not at all approvingly.

"Yes. A long time ago he very carelessly engaged himself to a giddy little b.u.t.terfly in Salt Lake City, and he doesn't want to marry her at all, but he feels it is his duty because they have been engaged for so many years. Isn't it pitiful?"

"But it is none of your business," he began sternly.

"It is another engagement with the enemy in my campaign," she insisted.

"Oh, just think of it--the insult to love, the profanation of the sacrament of marriage--the--the--the insult to womanhood--"

"You said insult before."

"Yes, but just think of it. I feel it is my duty to save him."

"Where did you come across him?"

"He is the new member of our firm. I told you about him long ago. The good-looking one. He has been with us six months, but I am just getting acquainted with him. We had luncheon together to-day, and he told me about it. He doesn't like social b.u.t.terflies at all, he likes clever, practical girls, with high ideals, and--"

"Like you, of course."

"Yes, of course. I explained my theory to him, and he was perfectly enchanted with it. But he could not quite grasp it all in those few minutes--it is rather deep, you know--and so he is coming up to dinner to-night to make a thorough study of it. He feels it is his one last hope, and if it fails him, he is lost in the sea of a loveless marriage."

"I do not object to your fishing him out of the loveless sea," Nolan said plaintively. "But I do object to his eating the steak you promised me."

"Think of the cause," she begged. "Think of the glory of winning another duty-bound soul to the boundless principles of freedom. Think of--"

"I can't think of anything, Eveley," he said sadly, "except that good-looking fellow eating my steak, cooked by the hands of my er--girl."

As a matter of fact, he took it very seriously. For while he was still firmly wedded to his ideal of fame and fortune, he was unceasingly haunted by the fearful nightmare of some interloper "beating his time,"

as he crudely but patently expressed it.

He spent a long and dreary evening, followed by other evenings equally long and dreary, for the Good-Looking Young Member found great difficulty in mastering the intricacies of a Dutiless Life, and Eveley continued his education with the greatest patience, and some degree of pleasure.

Her interest in the pursuit of motors did not wane, however, and after trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely invested her fortune in a st.u.r.dy blue Rollsmobile, and was immediately enraptured with the sensation of absolute control of a throbbing engine.

She found it no trifling matter to attend to her regular duties as private secretary, to keep her Cloud Cote dainty and sweet as of yore, to be out in her little blue car on every possible occasion, and still not neglect the Good-Looking Member and the Father-in-law in her campaign against duty.

First of all, she invited the elder Mr. Severs to dinner, and forestalled his refusal by saying: "Please. I have a perfectly wonderful calf's liver, and I want you to cook it for me. The odor that comes up from the kitchen below is irresistible."

No father-in-law who loved calf's liver and a kitchen could withstand that invitation and he found he had accepted before he knew it. To his boundless delight, the dinner was as though designed in Heaven, for his delectation. Clam chowder, calves' liver and sliced onions, watermelon preserves, and home made apple pie--made by Kitty, who had received rigid orders to provide the richest and juiciest confection possible, overflowing with apples and spice.

As they sat chummily together over a red table-cloth, which Eveley had bought especially for this occasion, she said thoughtfully:

"I believe I am the only really happy person in the world. Do you know why? It is because I am free. I am not dependent on the whims or fancies of any one. I eat what I like, go where I like, sleep when I like. It is the only life. I often think how remarkable it is that you can be so happy living down there with those honeymooners, doing everything to please them, eating what they like, going to bed when they get sleepy. It is wonderfully unselfish of you--but I couldn't. I have to be free."

"You are a sensible girl," he said thoughtfully. "I never saw any one more sensible. Don't you ever get married. You stay like you are. Holy Mackinaw! Don't this liver melt in your mouth?"

"I do not really care for an apartment like this," Eveley went on. "I prefer a cottage, off by itself, with a little garden, and a few chickens in the back yard, just a tiny shack in a eucalyptus grove, a couple of rooms where I can eat in the kitchen and sleep in the living-room."

"Oh, mama, it sounds like Heaven," and he rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"I am looking for a cottage now. If I find exactly what I want, I may move. I should think you would prefer something like that yourself--a little rusty cot and a garden and a dog, where you could smoke all over the house, and have your friend come in for pinochle every night. I do not see how you can live as you do cooped up with a bride and groom."

He sighed dolorously.

"But I suppose some people like it. It wouldn't do for me. That is why I am looking for a cottage. Do you drive a car?"

"A Ford. I wanted to buy a Ford, but daughter said no, they would not have a Ford. They would wait till they could afford an electric. She wouldn't let me buy a Ford for myself either. Said it looked too poor."

"Did you ever have one?"

"Me? Sure I did. But I accidentally drove off the road into the sand when I was fishing once, and the tide was coming in and it washed the car down. And when I got back with another car to tow mine out, it was gone.

Some said the tide carried it out to sea, and some said a thief stole it, but it was gone, so it didn't matter how it went."

Then Eveley was content to talk of other things.

The next day she called up from the office, and asked to speak to Father-in-law.

"I am going up to see a little cottage to-night," she said excitedly.

"And my car is in the garage for adjustment. I unfortunately hit a curb and banged my fender. So I have rented a Ford for an hour or so, and want you to come along and drive it for me. Will you? Good! I will be there at five o'clock."

"She is a sensible girl," he said to his son's wife as he hung up the receiver. "A nice sensible girl. She ought to help you a good lot."