he not enjoy himself?
Just before he went in to luncheon, however, there was a telephone call
for him.

Miss Stevens was perplexed to know what divine intuition had told him
her obsession for maraschino chocolates. She had one in her fingers at
the very moment she was telephoning, and she was going to pop it into
her mouth while he talked. Being a mere man he could not realize how
delightfully refreshing was a maraschino chocolate.

Sam had a lively picture of that dainty confection between the tips of
her dainty fingers; he could see the white hand and the graceful wrist,
and then he could see those exquisitely curved red lips parting with a
flash of white teeth to receive the delicacy; and he had an impulse to
climb through the telephone.

A little bird had told him about her preference, he stated. He had
that little bird regularly in his employ to find out other preferences.

"I had those sent just to show you that I am not altogether absorbed in
business," he went on; "that I can think of other things. Have another
chocolate."

"I am," she laughingly said; "but I'm not going to eat them all. I'm
going to save one or two for you."

"Good," returned Sam in huge delight and relief. "I'll come over to
get them any time you say."

"All right," she gaily agreed. "As I told you this morning, I have an
engagement for this afternoon, but if you'll come over after luncheon
I'll try to find a half-hour or so for you anyhow."

Great blotches of perspiration sprang out on his forehead.

"Jinks!" he ejaculated. "You know, right after you telephoned me this
morning I made an engagement with Mr. Blackrock and Mr. Cuthbert and
Mr. Westlake, to go over some proposed incorporation papers."

"Oh, by all means, then, keep your engagement," she told him, and he
could feel the instant frigidity which returned to her tone. A
zero-like wave seemed to come right through the transmitter of the
telephone and chill the perspiration of his brow into a cold trickle.

"No, I'll see if I can not set that engagement off for a couple of
hours," he hastily informed her.

"By no means," she protested, more frigidly than before. "Come to
think of it, I don't believe I'd have time anyhow. In fact, I'm sure
that I would not. Mr. Hollis is calling me now. Good-by."

"Wait a minute," he called desperately into the telephone, but it was
dead, and there is nothing in this world so dead as the telephone from
which connection has b