“Who is it?” boomed a voice from within. “Who're you turning away, Casey?”
“A woman, not a parishioner.” The door was almost shut now.
Footsteps down the hall. “Good! Let her in.” The door opened ever so reluctantly. Father Fitzpatrick loomed up beside his puny assistant, dwarfing him. He looked sharply at the figure on the porch. “For the love of—! Casey, you're a fool! How you ever got beyond being an altar-boy is more than I can see. Come in, child. Come in! The man's cut out for a jailor, not a priest.”
Fanny's two hands were caught in one of his big ones, and she was led down the hall to the study. It was the room of a scholar and a man, and the one spot in the house that defied the housekeeper's weapons of broom and duster. A comfortable and disreputable room, full of books, and fishing tackle, and chairs with sagging springs, and a sofa that was dented with friendly hollows. Pipes on the disorderly desk. A copy of “Mr. Dooley” spread face down on what appeared to be next Sunday's sermon, rough-drafted.
“I just wanted to talk to you.” Fanny drifted to the shelves, book-lover that she was, and ran a finger over a half-dozen titles. “Your assistant was justified, really, in closing the door on me. But I'm glad you rescued me.” She came over to him and stood looking up at him. He seemed to loom up endlessly, though hers was a medium height. “I think I really wanted to talk to you about that ravine, though I came to say good-by.”
“Sit down, child, sit down!” He creaked into his great leather-upholstered desk chair, himself. “If you had left without seeing me I'd have excommunicated Casey. Between you and me the man's mad. His job ought to be duenna to a Spanish maiden, not assistant to a priest with a leaning toward the flesh.”
Now, Father Fitzpatrick talked with a—no, you couldn't call it a brogue. It was nothing so gross as that. One does not speak of the flavor of a rare wine; one calls attention to its bouquet. A subtle, teasing, elusive something that just tickles the senses instead of punching them in the ribs. So his speech was permeated with a will-o'-the-wisp, a tingling richness that evaded definition. You will have to imagine it. There shall be no vain attempt to set it down. Besides, you always skip dialect.
“So you're going away. I'd heard. Where to?”
“Chicago, Haynes-Cooper. It's a wonderful chance. I don't see yet how I got it. There's only one other woman on their business staff—I mean working actually in an executive way in the buying and selling end of the business. Of course there are thousands doing clerical work, and that kind of thing. Have you ever been through the plant? It's—it's incredible.”
Father Fitzpatrick drummed with his fingers on the arm of his chair, and looked at Fanny, his handsome eyes half shut.