Part 9

Balfe held the door open for her. She paused in the doorway. "I'll be back in half an hour."

"Half an hour! Time is no bounding youth, Marie Welkie."

"Come for me, then--Oh, when you please," she whispered, and passed swiftly out.

* * * * *

Necker was examining the shelf of books above the work-table. "Keats? Keats? Oh-h, poetry! Montaigne. Montaigne? Oh, yes!" He took it down. "H-m, in French!" and put it back. One after the other he read the titles. "Elizabethan Verse. E-u-r-i-p-i-d-e-s. Dante. H-m."

Balfe by now had turned from the screen door. Necker pointed to the shelf. "Not a book for a practical man in the whole lot, and"--he held up the ensign--"this! Isn't that the dreamer through and through?"

"But you and I, not being dreamers, consider how thankful we should be."

Necker stared in surprise, and then he smiled. "Now, now, I'm meaning no harm to your friend. I guess you don't know what I'm after, though I'll bet I can guess what you're after."

Balfe, fairly meeting Necker's eye, had to smile; and when Necker saw Balfe smile he winked. "You don't s'pose you could come down here to this God-forsaken hole, do you, without somebody getting curious?"

"I suppose it was too much to expect. Have a smoke?"

"Thanks." Necker's tone was polite, but it was a most negligent glance that he gave the box of cigars. There was no name on the box. Balfe, with unsmiling mien, pointed out two small letters on the cover. "$1.$2. Mr. Necker."

"$1.$2."

"Hernando Cabada, Key West."

"O-ho! How'd you ever manage to get hold of a box of them?"

"They're Welkie's."

"How can he afford 'em? I offered old Cabada a dollar, a dollar and a half, and finally two dollars apiece for a thousand of 'em, coming through Key West the other day--and couldn't get 'em. Nor could all the pull I had in the place get 'em for me. He wasn't going to make any more that week, he said. He's a queer one. He's got all those Socialist chaps going the other way. For why should he work four, five, six hours a day, he said, when he could make all he wanted in one or two? Sells cigars to people he likes for fifteen dollars a hundred, but wouldn't sell to me at any price. I had to take my hat off to him--he stuck. Now, how do you dope a chap like that?"

"How do you?"

"Don't know the real values in life. Maybe a bit soft up top, besides." He lit up and drew several deep inhalations. "M-m--this is a smoke for a man!" He picked up the box gently. "If I thought Welkie'd take it, I'd offer more than a good price for the rest of that box. But"--suspicion was growing in his eyes--"how does it happen--d'y' s'pose somebody's been here ahead of me after all?"

"He's coming down-stairs now--ask him," smiled Balfe.

Welkie stepped into the veranda. "I was in my workroom when the buzzer told me you had come in, Mr. Necker, but on the way down I couldn't help looking in on young Greg. I'm glad to see you."

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Welkie. And to get right down to business, I'm the new president of the Gulf Construction Company, and I want to talk a few things over with you."

"Surely."

"Greg"--Balfe had opened the door--"how far up the beach to your cook's shack?"

"Oh, for Marie? A hundred yards that side."

"I'll look in there. Good night, Mr. Necker."

"Don't hurry away on my account, Mr. Balfe. I'd like you, or any friend of Mr. Welkie and his family, to hear what I have to say. It's a straight open-and-shut proposition I've got."

"Then we'll try to be back to hear some of it. Good-by for a while, then." The door closed behind him.

"Let's sit down, Mr. Necker."