He couldn’t tell her. The fear of the vague nemesis he called "chickens coming home to roost" was too obscure. Listening in a daze to the rest of his instructions, he seized them chiefly because they would ease the line he was to take with Bob. He was to give him no hint that he, the father, had heard anything of the Follett girl. The South American mission could stand on its own merits as extremely flattering. Whatever reluctance Bob might feel, he would see the opportunity as too important to forego. All Junia begged of her husband was to know nothing of Bob’s love affairs. If Bob himself brought the subject up, it would be enough to remain firm on the question of money. Of the rest, Junia was willing to take charge, as she would explain to him when he came home in the afternoon. These instructions Collingham did his best to carry out. At lunch, in the house’s private room at the Bowling Green Club, he approached Mr. Huntley on the subject of being responsible for Bob on the errand to Asuncion, and Mr. Huntley expressed himself as delighted. On returning to the bank, Collingham asked Miss Ruddick to bring the young man to the private office. "Hello, Bob! How are things going?" "So, so, dad," Bob admitted, guardedly. "Sit down. I want to talk to you." Bob sat down gingerly, warily, scenting something in the wind, much like Max or Dauphin from a person’s atmosphere. Whatever his mother had been told on Saturday, his father might have learned by Wednesday. Bob would have been sure of this were it not that his mother often had curious reserves. For Collingham there was nothing to do but to plunge on the subject of South America, and he plunged. But, in his dread of the roosting chicken, he plunged nervously, with a tendency to redden, to stammer, and otherwise to betray himself. Before he had finished Bob was saying inwardly: "Mother’s put him wise to Jennie and I’m to be packed off. Well, we’ll see." "It’s thumping good of you and Mr. Huntley, dad," he said, aloud; "and I suppose it would do if I gave you my answer in a day or two." "That’s the girl," the father thought; but he obeyed Junia’s injunction as to not being explicit when it came to words. "You see, it’s this way, Bob: It’s not exactly an invitation that I’m giving you; it’s—it’s a decision of the bank of which you’re an employee. We take it for granted that you’ll go if we want to send you." "And I take it for granted that you won’t send me if I don’t want to go." Not to force the issue, Collingham left the matter there, preferring to consult Junia as to what he should do next. To this end, he drove home earlier than usual.