rtainly you would. Primmie will bring
you hot water as soon as it's ready. No, don't try to tell me a word
until after you are rested and washed up."

It was a welcome suggestion, not because Galusha was so eager to "wash
up," but because he was eager, very eager, to be alone where no one
could ask more embarrassing questions. Yet the last thing he saw as he
closed his room door was the expression upon Miss Phipps' face. Hope,
relief, happiness! And what he had to tell would change them all.

Oh, if he had not been so foolishly optimistic! What should he say? If
he told the exact truth--the whole truth--

But there, what was the whole truth? After all, he did not KNOW that
nothing would come of his letter to Cousin Gussie. Something might
come of it. Yes, even something very good might come. If Cousin Gussie
himself never saw the letter, Thomas, the secretary, would see it and
very likely he would write encouragingly. He might--it was quite
likely that he would--give the names of other Boston financiers to whom
Wellmouth Development might be of interest. In this case, or even
the probability of such a case, he, Galusha, would certainly not be
justified in making his story too discouraging.

When, at last, he did descend to the sitting room, where Miss Phipps was
awaiting him, the tale he told her bore very little resemblance to the
hopeless, despairful narrative he had, while on the way down in the
train, considered inevitable and the telling of which he had so dreaded.
In fact, when it was finished Martha's expression had changed but
little. She still looked happy.

She drew a long breath. "Well!" she exclaimed, "I can hardly believe it;
it seems almost too good to believe. And so that secretary man told you
that he felt sure that your cousin, or his other secretary--how many
secretaries does one man have to have, for mercy sakes?--would attend to
the Development thing and it would be all right if we would just wait a
little longer? Was that it?"

Galusha, who, in his intense desire not to be discouraging, had not
until now realized how far he had gone in the other direction, blinked
and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"That was it, wasn't it?" repeated Martha.

"Why--why--ah--yes, about that, as--ah--one might say. Yes."

It was the first lie Galusha Bangs had told for many, many years, one of
the very few he had ever told. It was a very white lie and not told with
deliberation or malice aforethou