"I leave in three days. Goodness knows how long I'll be gone!
A business deal down there is a ceremony. And--you won't need
any white-flannel clothes in Rock Island, Illinois."

Buck, aghast, faced her from the doorway.

"You mean, I----"

"Just that," smiled Emma McChesney pleasantly. And pressed the
button that summoned the stenographer.

In the next forty-eight hours, Mrs. McChesney performed a series
of mental and physical calisthenics that would have landed an
ordinary woman in a sanatorium. She cleaned up with the
thoroughness and dispatch of a housewife who, before going to the
seashore, forgets not instructions to the iceman, the milkman,
the janitor, and the maid. She surveyed her territory, behind
and before, as a general studies troops and countryside before
going into battle; she foresaw factory emergencies, dictated
office policies, made sure of staff organization like the
business woman she was. Out in the stock-room, under her
supervision, there was scientifically packed into sample-trunks
and cases a line of Featherloom skirts and knickers calculated to
dazzle Brazil and entrance Argentina. And into her own personal
trunk there went a wardrobe, each article of which was a garment
with a purpose. Emma McChesney knew the value of a smartly
tailored suit in a business argument.

T. A. Buck canceled his order at the tailor's, made up his own
line for the Middle West, and prepared to storm that prosperous