CHAPTER 24

Quin's life at the factory these past three weeks had been full of new and engrossing business complications. Mr. Bangs seemed bent upon trying him out in various departments, each change bringing new and distracting duties. Just what was the object of the proceeding Quin had no idea; but he realized that he was being singled out and experimented with, and he applied to each new task the acc.u.mulated knowledge and experience of those that had gone before. It was all very exciting and gratifying to a person possessed of an inordinate ambition to have a worthy shrine ready the moment his G.o.ddess evinced the slightest willingness to occupy it.

"Old Iron Jaw's got his optic on you for something," said Miss Leaks, the stenographer. "Maybe he wants you to p.u.s.s.y-foot around in Shields' shoes and do his dirty work for him."

"Well, he's got another guess coming," said Quin; but her remark disturbed him. Of course it was no concern of his how the firm did business, but more than once he had been called upon to negotiate some delicate matter that was not at all to his liking.

"See here, young man," Mr. Bangs said upon one of these occasions, "I am not paying you for advice. You are here to carry out my orders and to make no comments."

"That's all right," Quin agreed good-naturedly; "but I got a conscience that was trained to stand on its hind legs and bark at a lie."

"The quicker you muzzle it the better," said Mr. Bangs. "You can't do business these days by the Golden Rule."

On the Sat.u.r.day when Eleanor saw Quin in the park with Rose Martel, the factory had been in the throes of one of its most violent upheavals. Some weeks before the old steam engine had been replaced by an expensive electric drive. There had been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He and Dirk, the foreman, never tired of discussing the perfection of each particular feature. But a few days after the departure of the installation foreman, the new motor burnt out, necessitating the shutting down of the factory and causing much inconvenience.

Dirk was beside himself with rage. He declared that something heavy had been dropped upon the armature winding, and he blamed every one who could have been responsible, and some who could not. In the midst of his tirade he was summoned to the office, where he was closeted for more than an hour with Mr. Bangs and Mr. Shields. When he emerged, it was with the avowed belief that the armature had been defective when received. This sudden change of front, taken in connection with the fact that the third payment was due on the motor in less than sixty days, set every tongue wagging.

Quin was in no way involved in the transaction; but, as usual, he had an emphatic opinion, which he did not hesitate to express.

"I don't know what's got into Dirk!" he said indignantly to Mr. Shields, the traffic manager, as they left the office together. "He knows the injury to the armature was done in our shop and that we are responsible for it."

"I guess Dirk's like the rest of us," said Shields bitterly; "he knows a lot he can't tell."

"What do you mean? Do you think it was a frame-up?"

"Well, we don't call it that. But when the boss gets in a hole, somebody's got to pull him out. I'm getting mighty sick of it myself.

Wish to the Lord I could pull up stakes as Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Chester did."

It was not until they separated that Quin's thoughts left the disturbing events of the day and flew to something more pleasing. For two weeks now he had had to content himself with chance interviews with Eleanor, meager diet for a person with an omnivorous appet.i.te; but to-night there was the prospect for a long, uninterrupted evening. Since the day of Miss Enid's wedding he had found her perplexed and absent-minded; but the fact that she always had a smile for him, and that nothing was seen or heard of Harold Phipps, sufficed to satisfy him.

When he started across Central Park the sun was just setting, and he turned off the main path and dropped down on a bench to rest for a moment. He had acquired a taste for sunsets at a tender age, having watched them from many a steamer's prow. He knew how the harbor of Hongkong brimmed like a goblet of red wine, how Fujiyama's snow-capped peak turned rose, he knew how beautiful the sun could look through a barrage of fire. But it was of none of these that he thought as he sat on the park bench, his arms extended along the back, his long legs stretched out, and his eyes on a distant smokestack. He was thinking of a country stile and a girl in white and green, in whose limpid eyes he watched the reflected light of the most wonderful of all his sunsets.

For the third time since leaving the office, he consulted his watch.

Six-thirty! Another hour and a half must be got through before he could see her.

A rustle of leaves behind him made him look up, but before he could turn his head two hands were clapped over his eyes. Investigation proved them to be feminine, and he promptly took them captive.

"It's Rose?" he guessed.

"Let me go!" she laughed; "somebody will see you."

She slipped around the bench and dropped down beside him.

"I was coming out the avenue and spied you mooning over here by yourself.

What's the trouble?"

"No trouble at all. Just stopped to get my wind a bit--and watch the sunset."

"I think you are working too hard." She looked at him with anxious solicitude. "I've a good notion to put you on b.u.t.termilk again."

"Good work! Put me on anything you like except dried peaches and wienies."

"And you need more recreation," Rose persisted. "It's not good for anybody to work all day and go to school at night. What's the matter with us getting Ca.s.s and Fan Loomis and going down to Fontaine Ferry to-night?"

"Can't do it," said Quin with ill-concealed pride. "Got a date with Miss Eleanor Bartlett."

Rose sat silent for a moment, stirring the dead leaves with her shabby boot; then she turned and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Quin," she said, "I am worried sick about Nell and Harold Phipps."

Quin, who had been trying to beguile a squirrel into believing that a pebble was a nut, looked up sharply.

"What do you mean?" he said. "She hasn't seen him since last summer, and she never mentions his name."

"_Don't_ she? She hardly talks about anything else. She writes to him all the time and wears his picture in her watch!"

"Do you know that?"

"Of course I know it. She can't talk about him at home, so she pours it all out to me."

"But haven't you told her what you know about him?"

"I've hinted at it, but she won't believe me because she knows I hate him. I wanted to tell her about what he said to me, and about that nurse he got into trouble out at the hospital; but I was afraid it might make an awful row and spoil everything for Papa Claude."

"I don't care who it spoils things for! She's got to be told." Quin's eyes were blazing.

"But perhaps if we leave it alone he'll get tired of her. They say he keeps after a girl until he gets her engaged to him, then drops her."

"He'd never drop Miss Nell. No man would. He'd be trying to marry her."

"But what can we _do?_ The more people talk about him, the more she's going to take up for him. That's Nell all over."

"Couldn't Mr. Martel----"

"Papa Claude's as much taken in as she is. You remember the night over home when he talked about his lovely detached soul? He never sees the truth about anybody."

"Well, he's going to see the truth about this. If you don't write to him to-night and tell him the kind of man Mr. Phipps is, I will!"

"Wait till to-morrow. I'll have another round with Nell. I've got some proof that I think she'll have to believe."

Quin rose restlessly. He wanted to go to the Bartletts' at once, if only to stand guard at the gate against the danger that threatened Eleanor.

"Aren't you coming home to supper?" asked Rose.

"No," he said absently; "I don't want any supper."