He had hoped to find her alone, but when he entered the office, he saw five or six of the store personnel with her. Since opening her father's safe, she had evidently dropped all pretense of Illiteracy; there was a mass of papers spread on the big desk, and she was referring from one to another of them with the deft skill of a regular Fraternities Literate, while the others watched in fascinated horror.
"Wait a moment, Mr. Hutschnecker," she told the white-haired man in the blue and orange business suit with whom she had been talking, and laid the printed price-schedule down, advancing to meet him.
"Ralph!" she greeted him. "Frank Cardon told me you were coming. I--"
For a moment, he thought of the afternoon, over two years ago, when she had entered his office at the school, and he had recognized her as the older sister of young Ray Pelton.
"Professor Prestonby," she had begun, accusingly, "you have been teaching my brother, Raymond Pelton, to read!"
He had been prepared for that; had known that sooner or later there would be some minor leak in the security screen around the classrooms on the top floor.
"My dear Miss Pelton," he had protested pleasantly. "I think you've become overwrought over nothing. This pretense to Literacy is a phase most boys of Ray's age pass through; they do it just as they play air-pirates or hi-jackers a few years earlier. The usual trick is to memorize something heard from a record disk, and then pretend to read it from print."
"Don't try to kid me, professor. I know that Ray can read. I can prove it."
"And supposing he has learned a few words," he had parried. "Can you be sure I taught him? And if so, what had you thought of doing about it? Are you going to expose me as a corrupter of youth?"
"Not unless I have to," she had replied coolly. "I'm going to blackmail you, professor. I want you to teach me to read, too."
Now, with this gang of her father's Illiterate store officials present, a quick handclasp and a glance were all they could exchange.
"Out of danger, for the present. There was a medic here, who left just before you arrived. He brought nitrocaine bulbs, and gave father something to make him sleep. He's lying down, back in his rest room." She led him to a door at the rear of the office and motioned him to enter, following him. "He's going to sleep for a couple of hours, yet."