"Ask him to wait," the young architect ordered.
After he had smoked and stared for a few moments longer he turned to Cook.
"What did we specify those I-beams for the Canostota? Were they forty-twos or sixties?"
Without raising his hand from the minute lines of the linen sheet, the draughtsman grunted:—
"Don't remember just what. Weren't forty-twos. Nothing less than sixties ever got out of this office, I guess. May be eighties. What's the matter?"
"Um," the architect reflected, knocking his cigarette against the table. "It makes a difference in the sizes what make they are, doesn't it?"
"It don't make any difference about the weights!" And the draughtsman turned to his linen sheet with a shrug of the shoulders that said, "You ought to know that much by this time!"
The architect continued to stare out of the murky window.
"When is Harmon coming back?"
"Ed lives out his way, and he says it's a long-term typhoid. You can't tell when he'll be back."
"Has the old man wired anything new about his plans?"
"You'll have to ask Miss Bellows. I haven't heard anything."
"He said he'd be here next Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, didn't he?"
The draughtsman stared hard at Hart, wondering what was in the man's mind. But he made no answer to the last remark, and presently the architect sauntered to the next window.
As Jackson well knew, Graves was waiting to close that arrangement which he had proposed for building an apartment house. The architect had intended to look up the Canostota specifications before he went further with Graves, but he had been distracted by other matters, and had thought nothing more about the troublesome I-beams until this morning.
Jackson Hart was not given to undue speculation over matters of conduct. He had a serviceable code of business morals, which hitherto had met all the demands of his experience. He called this code "professional etiquette." In this case he was not clear how the code should be applied. The Canostota was not his affair. It was only by the merest accident that he had been sent there that day to supervise the electricians, and had seen that drill-hole, which had led him to question the thickness of the I-beams, and he might very well have been mistaken about them. If there were anything wrong with them, at any rate, it was Wright's business to see that the contractor was properly watched when the steel work was being run through the mill. And he did not feel any special sense of obligation toward his employer, who had never displayed any great confidence in him.
He wanted the contractor's commission now more than ever, with his engagement to Helen freshly pricking him to look for bread and butter; wanted it all the more because any thought of fighting his uncle's will had gone when Helen had accepted him. It was now clearly his business to provide for his future as vigorously as he could. …
When he rang for the stenographer and told her to show Graves into his office, he had made up his mind. Closing his door, he turned and looked into the contractor's heavy face with an air of alert determination. He was about to play his own game for the first time, and he felt the man's excitement of it!
The two remained shut up in the architect's cubby-hole for over an hour. When Cook had returned from the restaurant in the basement where he lunched, and the other men had taken their hats and coats from the lockers, Hart stepped out of his office and walked across the room to Cook's table. He spread before the draughtsman a fresh sepia sketch, the water scarcely dried on it. It was the front elevation for a house, such a one as is described impressively in the newspapers as "Mr. So-and-So's handsome country residence."
"Now, that's what I call a peach!" Cook whistled through his closed teeth, squinting at the sketch admiringly. "Nothing like that residence has come out of this office for a good long time. The old man don't favor houses as a rule. They're too fussy. Is this for some magnate?"
"This isn't done for the firm," Jackson answered quickly.
"Oh!" Cook received the news with evident disappointment. "Just a fancy sketch?"
"Not for a minute! This is my own business. It's for a Mrs. Phillips—her country house at Forest Park."
Cook looked again at the elevation of the large house with admiring eyes. If he had ever penetrated beyond the confines of Cook County in the state of Illinois, he might have wondered less at Hart's creation. But he was not familiar with the Loire châteaux, even in photographs, for Wright's tastes happened to be early English.
"So you're going to shake us?" Cook asked regretfully.
"Just as soon as I can have a word with Mr. Wright. This isn't the only job I have on hand."
"Is that so? Well, you're in luck, sure enough."
"Don't you want to come in?" Hart asked abruptly. "I shall want a good practical man. How would you like to run the new office?"
Cook's manner froze unexpectedly into caution.
"Oh, I don't know. It's pretty good up here looking after Wright's business."
Hart picked up his sketch and turned away.
"I thought you might like the chance. Some of the men I knew in Paris may join me a little later, and I shan't have much trouble in making up a good team."
Then he went out to his luncheon, and when he returned, he shut himself up in his box, stalking by Cook's desk without a word. When he came forth again the day's work was over, and the office force had left. Cook was still dawdling over his table.
"Say, Hart!" he called out to the architect. "I don't want you to have the wrong idea about my refusing that offer of yours. I don't mind letting you know that I ain't fixed like most of the boys. I've got a family to look after, my mother and sister and two kid brothers. It isn't easy for us to pull along on my pay, and I can't afford to take any chances."
"Who's asking you to take chances, Cookie?" Hart answered, mollified at once. "Perhaps you might do pretty well by yourself."
"You see," Cook explained further, "my sister's being educated to teach, but she's got two years more at the Normal. And Will's just begun high school. Ed's the only earner besides myself in the whole bunch, and what he gets don't count."
Thereupon the architect sat down on the edge of the draughting-table in friendly fashion and talked freely of his plans. He hinted at the work for Graves and at his hopes of a large commission from some railroad.
"I have ten thousand dollars in the bank, anyway. That will keep the office going some time. And I don't mind telling you that I have something at stake, too," he added in a burst of confidence. "I am going to be married."
Cook grinned sympathetically over the news. It pleased him vastly to be told of Hart's engagement in this confidential way. After some further talk the matter of the new office was arranged between them then and there. Cook agreed to look into a building that had just pushed its head among the skyscrapers near the Maramanoc, to see if there was anything left in the top story that would answer their purposes. As they were leaving the office, Hart stopped, exclaiming suddenly:—
"I've got to telephone! Don't wait."
"That's always the way," the draughtsman replied. "You'll be telephoning most of the time, now, I expect!"
The architect did not telephone to Helen Spellman, however. He called up his cousin's office to tell Wheeler that he had concluded not to contest the will.
"And, Everett," he said frankly, "I guess I have made rather an ass of myself, telling you I was going to kick up a row. I hope you won't say anything about it."
The lawyer accepted the information without remark, and hung up his telephone. He may have wondered what had brought about this change of heart