Chapter 3

It was October when the consultation was held in the library of the old Ffrench house on the Hudson; December was very near on the sunny morning that Emily drove out to the factory and sought Bailey in his office.

“I wanted to talk with you,” she explained, as that gentleman rose to receive her. “We have known each other for a long time, Mr. Bailey; ever since I came from the Sacred Heart to live with Uncle Ethan. That is a very long time.”

“It’s a matter of five or six years,” agreed the charmed Bailey, contemplating her with affectionate pride in her prettiness and grace. “You used to drive out here with your pony and spend many an hour looking on and asking questions. You’ll excuse me, Miss Emily, but there was many a man passed the whisper that you’d have made a fine master of the works.”

She shook her head, folding her small gloved hands upon the edge of the desk at the opposite sides of which they were seated.

“At least I would have tried. I am quite sure I would have tried. But I am only a girl. I came to ask you something regarding that,” she lifted her candid eyes to his, her soft color rising. “Do you know—have you ever met any men who cared and understood about such factories as this? Men who could take charge of a business, the manufacturing and racing and selling, like my uncles? I have a reason for asking.”

“Sure thing,” said Bailey, unexpectedly prompt. “I’ve met one man who knows how to handle this factory better than I do, and I’ve been at it twelve years. And there he is—” he turned in his revolving chair and rolled up the shade covering the glass-set door into the next room, “my manager, Lestrange.”

The scene thus suddenly opened to the startled Emily was sufficiently matter-of-fact, yet not lacking in a certain sober animation of its own. Around a drafting table central in the bare, systematic disorder of the apartment beyond, three or four blue-shirted men were grouped, bending over a set of drawings, which Lestrange was explaining. Explaining with a vivid interest in his task that sparkled over his clear face in a changing play of expression almost mesmeric in its command of attention. The men watched and listened intently; they themselves no common laborers, but the intelligent workmen who were to carry out the ideas here set forth. Wherever Lestrange had been, he was coatless and the sleeves of his outing shirt were rolled back, leaving bare the arms whose smooth symmetry revealed little of the racing driver’s strength; his thick brown hair was rumpled into boyish waves and across his forehead a fine black streak wrote of recent personal encounter with things practical.

“Oh!” exclaimed Emily faintly. And after a moment, “Close the curtain, please.”

None of the group in the next room had noticed the movement of the shade, absorbed in one another; any sound being muffled by the throb of adjacent machinery. Bailey obeyed the request, and leaned back in his chair.

“That’s Darling Lestrange,” he stated with satisfaction. “That’s his own design for an oiling system he’s busy with, and it’s a beauty. He’s entered for every big race coming this season, starting next week in Georgia, and meantime he oversees every department in every building as it never was done before. The man for me, he is.”

Emily made an unenthusiastic sign of agreement.

“I meant very different men from Mr. Lestrange,” she replied, her dignity altogether Ffrench. “I have no doubt that he is all you say, but I was thinking of another class. I meant—well, I meant a gentleman.”