"Father's a great man and a good man, Ann love," she had confided to her, choosing an occasion when her husband was a hundred miles away, "and he IS right-down Lancashire in his clever way of seeing through people that think themselves sharp; but when a man is a genius and noble-minded he sometimes can't see the right people's faults and wickedness.He thinks they mean as honest as he does.And there's times when he may get taken in if some one, perhaps not half as clever as he is, doesn't look after him.When the invention's taken up, and everybody's running after him to try to cheat him out of his rights, if I'm not there, Ann, you must just keep with him and watch every minute.I've seen these sharp, tricky ones right-down flinch and quail when there was a nice, quiet-behaved woman in the room, and she just fixed her eye steady and clear-like on them and showed she'd took in every word and was like to remember.You know what I mean, Ann; you've got that look in your own eye."She had.The various persons who interviewed Mr.Hutchinson became familiar with the fact that he had an unusual intimacy with and affection for his daughter.She was present on all occasions.If she had not been such a quiet and entirely unobtrusive little thing, she might have been an obstacle to freedom of expression.But she seemed a childish, unsophisticated creature, who always had a book with her when she waited in an office, and a trifle of sewing to occupy herself with when she was at home.At first she so obliterated herself that she was scarcely noticed; but in course of time it became observed by some that she was curiously pretty.The face usually bent over her book or work was tinted like a flower, and she had quite magnificent red hair.A stout old financier first remarked her eyes.He found one day that she had quietly laid her book on her lap, and that they were resting upon him like unflinching crystals as he talked to her father.
Their serenity made him feel annoyed and uncomfortable.It was a sort of recording serenity.He felt as though she would so clearly remember every word he had said that she would be able to write it down when she went home; and he did not care to have it written down.So he began to wander somewhat in his argument, and did not reach his conclusions.
"I was glad, Father, to see how you managed that gentleman this afternoon," Little Ann said that night when Hutchinson had settled himself with his pipe after an excellent dinner.
"Eh?" he exclaimed."Eh?"
"The one," she exclaimed, "that thought he was so sure he was going to persuade you to sign that paper.I do wonder he could think you'd listen to such a poor offer, and tie up so much.Why, even I could see he was trying to take advantage, and I know nothing in the world about business."The financier in question had been a brilliant and laudatory conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr.Hutchinson that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the entire universe had ceased all other occupation to engage in that of defrauding him of his rights and dues.He had been so uplifted by the admiration of his genius so properly exhibited, and the fluency with which his future fortunes had been described, that he had been huffed when the arguments seemed to dwindle away.Little Ann startled him, but it was not he who would show signs of dismay at the totally unexpected expression of adverse opinion.He had got into the habit of always listening, though inadvertently, as it were, to Ann as he had inadvertently listened to her mother.
"Rosenthal?" he said."Are you talking about him?""Yes, I am," Little Ann answeered, smiling approvingly over her bit of sewing."Father, I wish you'd try and teach me some of the things you know about business.I've learned a little by just listening to you talk; but I should so like to feel as if I could follow you when you argue.I do so enjoy hearing you argue.It's just an education.""Women are not up to much at business," reflected Hutchinson."If you'd been a boy, I'd have trained you same as I've trained myself.
You're a sharp little thing, Ann, but you're a woman.Not but what a woman's the best thing on earth," he added almost severely in his conviction--"the best thing on earth in her place.I don't know what I'd ever have done without you, Ann, in the bad times."He loved her, blundering old egotist, just as he had loved her mother.
Ann always knew it, and her own love for him warmed all the world about them both.She got up and went to him to kiss him, and pat him, and stuff a cushion behind his stout back.
