Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/151

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do, of which he made no secret to her. She used to look at the walls of that great and ever-growing factory with his name upon it in letters so long and tall, and marvel to think that the man who had produced it was this so charming playfellow of hers—who now wooed her ardently with his eyes, but never with his lips.

He told her one day the story of that factory's creation out of an ideal formed suddenly in boyhood, told it with certain notable omissions and a certain lightness of manner that was assumed to mask the fact that he was talking so much about himself.

"Oh, I think that is wonderful," she cried at its conclusion. "Won-der-ful!"

"How'd you like to go through the plant?" he asked.

"Oh, I'd love it!" cried the girl enraptured. "I never had any use for an old factory before—but one that you built!" and she paused to drop coquettish eyes and let a fringe of dark lashes caress a pair of cheeks that to George Judson looked good enough to eat right then.

With his usual directness of action George set the visit for that very afternoon. To make the thing properly climactic, he drove Fay first through Franklin Street and halted before the shack-like structure in which he had found Milton Morris seven years before. The old wire-mesh sign was yet about it. "Milton