commented, leading Robin into a glass-enclosed room, in the
centre of which splashed a jolly fountain.

Tom sat with her while she ate the breakfast the Jap brought on a
lacquered tray. He kept up a fire of breezy talk just as though she were
the nice Rosalyn Crane. It was mostly about the baseball nine at
Hotchkiss, of which he was manager, and the new golf holes and an
inter-school swimming match and such things, concerning which poor
Robin knew nothing, but he was so boyish and jolly that Robin did not
feel in the least shy or awkward.

"Say, don't you want to go with me while I try out my new car? The road
toward Cornwall is good and I've bet that I can get her up to sixty.
Great morning, too. Are you game?"

Robin felt game for anything that would take her away from Miss Alicia's
friends--except Rosalyn. Tom took her back to the garage and tucked her
into half of the low seat and climbed in beside her.

For the next two hours they tore back and forth over the Cornwall road
at a pace that caught Robin's breath in her throat. Occasionally Tom
talked, but most of the time he bent over the wheel, his eyes on the
road ahead with a frenzied challenge in them, as though the innocent
stretch of macadam was prey for his vengeance.

Just outside of the town he slowed the car down to a snail's pace.

"Some baby, isn't she?" he asked and at Robin's perplexed eyes he went
off into rollicking laughter. "Why she _eats_ the road! Dad said I
couldn't get it out of her. I'll tell the world. Whew!"

Robin sat forward, suddenly alert.

"Are those the Mills?"

"Yep."

They were not so very unlike the Forsyth Mills--brick walls, dust, dirt,
smoke, towering chimneys, and noise, noise. But beyond them and the
river were rows of neat little white cottages, each with a yard, already
green.

"Best mills in New England. But Dad's prouder of his model village--as
Mother calls those cottages over there--than of his profit sheet. And
look at the school--Dad wanted a school good enough for his own son and
daughter, but Mother wouldn't let us go. I wish she had--I'll bet
there's enough good batting material right in this town to whip every
nine in this part of the country. There's Dad's library, too--"

But Robin did not heed the direction of his nod. She had suddenly seen
something that made her heart leap into her throat; Adam Kraus walking
into the office building carrying the square box with the leather
handles, which she knew c