For Bat, the walk up from the quayside was one of the many milestones in his chequered life.  He talked readily.  He listened, too.  But under it all his thought was busy.  The mystery of Father Adam’s letter was no longer a mystery.  He understood.  But he was also puzzled.  How had this thing come about?  How had Father Adam learned of this visit?  How had this girl become representative of the Skandinavia?  A hundred questions flashed through his mind, for none of which he could find a satisfactory answer.  But he smiled to himself as he thought of that last line in Father Adam’s letter.  “Treat her gently—­firmly, yes—­but very gently.  You see, she’s a—­woman.”

* * * * *

It was a moment likely to live with both in the years to come.  For Nancy it was at least the final stage of her apprenticeship, the passing of the portal beyond which opened out the world she so completely desired to take her place in.  Did it not mean the moment of shouldering the great burden of responsibility she had so steadfastly trained herself to bear?  For Bull Sternford it had no such meaning.  His powers had long since been tested.  As a meeting with the representative of a rival enterprise it was merely an incident in the life to which he had become completely accustomed.  Its significance lay in quite another direction.

Bat had taken his departure.  He had witnessed the meeting of Nancy with this protege Father Adam had sent him from the dark world of the forests.  And his witness of it had been with twinkling eyes, and the happy sense of an amusement he had never looked to discover in the presence of a representative of the Skandinavia.  In an unexpressed fashion he realised he was gazing upon something in the nature of a stage play.

He had found Bull transformed.  The office suit was gone.  The man’s hair was carefully brushed.  He even suspected the liberal use of soap and water.  And then, too, the heavy, rough boots had given place to shining patent leather.  The youth and human nature of it pleased him.  So he had departed to the workshops below with a voiceless chuckle, and a greater appreciation of the inevitability of the things of life.

Apart from Nancy’s appreciation of that meeting, the woman in her sought to appraise the man she beheld.  Her impression was far deeper than she knew.  The height and muscular girth she beheld left her with a feeling that she was gazing upon one of the pictures her school-girl mind had created for the great men of Greek and Roman history.  The clean-shaven, clear-cut face, with its fine eyes and broad brow, its purposeful mouth; these were details that had to be there, and were there.  And somehow, as she realised them, and the sense of the man’s power and personality forced itself upon her, her original confidence still further lessened, and she wondered not a little anxiously as to the outcome of this interview she had sought.