The papers were before Mr. Bigelow, and the great brain was grappling with them; it being Mr. Babcock's part to weed out details and trouble Mr. Bigelow only with the broader facts. “And now, Mr. Babcock,” said the head of the firm, “how are we to arrive at this?” Mr. Babcock leaned forward and mumbled a few sentences with the air of a man habitually afraid of being overheard and caught. Mr. Bigelow's brow drew together, in such a state of concentration was the massive brain. History has not recorded the subject of these documents; whether it was Kentucky Coal or New Freighters, or the booming town of Northwest Chicago, or suburban street-railways, or one of the dozen or more growing interests that absorbed at this time the attention and some of the money of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company (to say nothing of the money of the Bigelow followers), we may never know. For at the moment when the Bigelow brows were knitted the closest, when the questions raised by the papers were about to attain a masterly and decisive solution, an office-boy entered the room--a round-eyed boy so awed by the Presence that he was visibly impatient to deliver his message and efface himself--a boy who was habitually out of breath. “Lady t' see y'u, sir.” Mr. Bigelow turned with some annoyance. How often had his subordinates instructed this boy to demand the card of every visitor and to lay it silently on the mahogany desk. But, on the other hand, Mr. Bigelow made it a point to rise above petty annoyances. “Well, boy, what is the name?” “Sh' wouldn' give 't, sir.” The great man's expression changed slightly; it was as if he had suddenly remembered something. He turned to the desk and fingered the papers for a moment. “We will take up this matter after lunch, Mr. Babcock.” He spoke a shade more pompously than was his wont in dealing with his junior. Mr. Babcock bowed and went out. Then Mr. Bigelow turned to his stenographer, who was clicking away by the window. “Miss Brown, I wish you would go out to the files and look up all the Pine Lands correspondence for me.” The stenographer laid aside her work and went out. And now Mr. Bigelow, once more bland and gracious, turned to the boy who was holding fast to the bronze door-knob. “Here, boy, you may show the lady in.” Having said this, he bent over a letter and was so busy that he seemed not to hear the woman enter. For some moments she stood there by the closed door. Once she coughed timidly; and even that failed to reach the attention of the much-absorbed man. But at last the letter was laid down and Mr. Bigelow turned. “Sit down,” he said, motioning to the chair that Mr. Babcock had just now vacated. But the woman, it seemed, preferred to stand. “Why have you come here?” “I think you know why I have come.”