Joyces Investments | Page 7

Dover, at her elbow, remarked plaintively,
"There, Miss Joyce, I knowed you'd need your sealskin such a day," to which the girl only answered, with an odd smile,
"Even a sealskin couldn't stop that shiver, Ellen; it might make it worse, indeed. Come, I think this is the way to the office. Doesn't it say something over that door at the right? Yes, there it is--come on!"
They traversed a considerable space of uneven ground crossed and recrossed by the narrow-gauge tracks upon which the sand and grit trucks ran, avoiding one or two localities where steam shot upward from the ground in a witch-like and erratic manner, with short angry hisses and chopping sounds that suggested danger, and finally stood before the door designated "OFFICE" in plain lettering. Joyce looked around at her companion with a perplexed little laugh.
"Do we knock, Ellen? How does one do at a place like this,--just walk in as it 'twere a shop, or wait till you're let in, as at a house?"
"Goodness me!" bridled Ellen, gazing at the uninviting exterior. "Why should you be knocking and waiting when you own the whole business, I'd like to know? Just push in and tell who you be--that's what I'd do."
"Oh, I think not, Ellen--would you? I'd rather err on the safe side, seems to me. Do let's be polite, at least! Yes, I'll knock," and a timid rat-tat-tat, made by a small kid-covered knuckle, announced the first visit of the present owner of the great Early Works.
After an instant's delay the door was partly opened, and a preoccupied face, with perpendicular lines between the keen gray eyes, was thrust out impatiently, with the words,
"Well, why don't you come in? What--Oh, excuse me, ladies. Good-morning! What can I do for you?"
"Is Mr. Dalton in?" asked Joyce embarrassedly.
"Yes, I am he; please walk in. You'll have to excuse the litter here. I've been too busy to let them clean it up. Here's a chair, Miss--and here, ma'am"--calmly overturning two close beside the desk, that were heaped with papers.
Having thus seated his guests, the man stood in an inquiring attitude, surreptitiously glancing at Joyce who seemed to him almost superhumanly beautiful in that dusty place, for her pink flush and shy eyes only accentuated her charms. She found it necessary to explain the intrusion at once, but was so nervous over just the right form of self-introduction required that she rather lost her head, and stammered out,
"I--I thought I'd like to see the works and--and you"--then stopped, feeling how awkward was this beginning.
A smile flitted over his grave countenance.
"I am before you," he said, bowing somewhat elaborately. "If looking at me can do anybody any good----"
She checked him with a somewhat imperious gesture.
"I am Joyce Lavillotte," she said, growing cool again, "and I would like to look the place over."
The sentence died into silence before an ejaculation so amazed and long-drawn it made Joyce's eyes open wide. The man looked ready to burst into laughter, yet full of respect, too. At length he broke out,
"I beg your pardon! I am so surprised. I supposed you were a man. It's your name, probably, that deceived me--and then I never thought of a girl--a young lady--caring to examine into things, and asking for statistics, and so on. Then your handwriting--it was so bold. And your methods of expression--well, I have been completely fooled!"
He stopped the voluble flow of words, which Joyce felt instinctively to be unlike himself, and gazed at her again in a forgetfulness somewhat embarrassing. Joyce was trying to think of something to say when he broke out once more, "Yes, I supposed of course you were a man, and not so very young, either. I had pictured you the moral image of your father"--he stopped an instant, then asked with a sort of regretful note in his voice--"he was your father?"
"Yes," said Joyce coldly. "Only I bear my mother's name for certain private reasons."
"Yes. I had thought Lavillotte was merely a middle name. We have always spoken of--of you--as young Early, here. But excuse me! I am very glad to see you, Miss Lavillotte. You wish to go over the works, you say?"
"Yes, if perfectly convenient. And I want, if possible, to go inside one or two of the houses, if I may. Could it be managed, Mr. Dalton?"
"Assuredly. Just let me announce you, and they'll be honored----"
"But wait a minute!" Joyce was gathering her wits again.
"Is the idea general here that I am a man?" smiling up into his face so blithely that his eyes reflected the light in hers.
"Why, yes, I'm afraid it is. You see we know so little of Mr.--of your father--in a personal way, and all I have said has been under that impression. I humbly beg your pardon for it, Miss Lavillotte."
"No, you needn't.