elope, but she reflected that an
open message was better. She handed the card to the clerk, who took it
hesitatingly, and with a touch of "style" in his bearing, saying, "Mr.
Millard will not be down for half an hour yet. He is not up. Will you
wait?"

"He must be called," said Phillida. "It is a matter of life and death."

The clerk still held the note in his hand.

"He will be very much annoyed if that is not delivered to him at once.
It is his own affair, and, as I said, a matter of life and death," said
Phillida, speaking peremptorily, her courage rising to the occasion.

The clerk still held the note. He presently beckoned to a negro boy
sitting on one of the carved benches.

"Washington," he said.

Washington came forward to the counter.

"Wash," said the clerk in an undertone--an undress tone kept for those
upon whom it would have been useless to waste his habitual bearing as
the representative of the corporate proprietorship of the building--"has
Mr. Millard's man come in yet?"

"No, sir."

"Take this up to seventy-nine, and say that the lady is below and
insists on his being called at once." Then to Phillida, as the form of
Washington vanished upward by way of the marble staircase, "Will you
take a seat in the reception-room?" waving his hand slightly in the
direction of a portiere, behind which Phillida found herself in the
ladies' reception-room.

In ten minutes Millard came down the elevator, glanced about the office,
and then quickly entered the reception-room. There were unwonted traces
of haste in his toilet; his hair had been hastily brushed, but it had
been brushed, as indeed it would probably have been if Washington had
announced that the Graydon was in flames.

There was a moment of embarrassment. What manner was proper for such a
meeting? It would not do to say "Phillida," and "Miss Callender" would
sound forced and formal. Phillida was equally embarrassed as she came
forward, but Millard's tact relieved the tension. He spoke in a tone of
reserve and yet of friendliness.

"Good-morning. I hope no disaster has happened to you." The friendly
eagerness of this inquiry took off the brusqueness of omitting her name,
and the anxiety that prompted it was sincere.

"There is no time for explanations," said Phillida, hurriedly. "Mr.
Martin has called a Christian Science healer to see Tommy, who is very
ill with diphtheria."

"Tommy has diphtheria?" said Millard, his voice showing feeling.