While her stepmother had been talking Ben's thoughts had flown to the future and all that the breaking up of her father's present establishment would mean; but only hazily. Directly she was left alone they assumed the clearest of outlines. For if her father were single again what would he do? It was only too evident: he would request his daughter to return. And what would she do? She would have to say yes. She would not have the courage--or possibly even the right--to say no. Horrible to lose all this independence, this amusing work just as it was beginning to pay. But it would be inevitable, because he was her father, and he was getting old, and she would have no real reason to offer against it, being free as she was.
If it had been anyone else's father she would not have liked him at all, she found herself thinking. Ought the accident of parentage to entail such self-sacrificing devotion as it often does? Anyway, it did; and so long as she was free she would probably have to return.
But supposing she was not free! Her heart fluttered.
If she were not free--if she had thrown in her lot with another--her father would have no right....
It was about half-past ten when the door of "The Beck and Call" office opened and admitted Mr. St. Quentin.
Ben was alone. "Dolly has a day off," she said, "and Miss Marquard is accumulating things for a number of our people, or I would ask you into the back room.
"Oh, I mustn't talk about news," said Pat. "I've come as a client."
Ben laughed. "A client! That's splendid." She became very businesslike. "What can we do for you to-day?"
"It's perhaps rather an odd request," said Pat, "but I was wondering if you could help me to find--well, in point of fact, a wife. For myself, I mean."
Ben reeled for a moment under the suddenness of the shock.
"A wife!" she then exclaimed, blushing a little and fumbling for her notebook. Anything to regain composure!
"Yes," said Pat. "There's nothing so extraordinary about that, is there? Lots of men have wanted wives ever since the world began. In fact, there's a rumour that that is why it has gone on."
"Yes--I know--I've heard," Ben replied. She was recovering her nerve now. "But we don't transact business like that here. You want a matrimonial agency, if there are such things."