Ring Around the Sun

CHAPTER FIVE

OUTSIDE the door, Ann Carter stopped and said, "Now, please remember, Jay, his name is Crawford. You're not to call him Cranford or Crawham or any other name but Crawford."

Vickers said humbly, "I'll do my very best."

She came close to him and tightened his tie and straightened it and flicked some imaginary dust off his lapel.

"We're going out as soon as this is over and buy you a suit," she said.

"I have a suit," said Vickers.

The letters on the door read: North American Research.

"What I can't understand," protested Vickers, "is why North American Research and I should have anything in common."

"Money," said Ann. "They have it and you need it." She opened the door and he followed her in obediently, thinking what a pretty woman she was and how efficient. Too efficient. She knew too much. She knew books and publishers and what the public wanted and she was onto all the angles. She drove herself and everyone around her. She was never so happy as when three telephones were ringing and there were five dozen letters to be answered and a dozen calls to make. She had bullied him into coming here this day and it was not beyond reason, he told himself, that she had bullied Crawford and North American Research into wanting him to come.

"Miss Carter," said the girl at the desk, "you can go right in. Mr. Crawford is waiting for you."

She's even got the Indian sign on the receptionist, Vickers thought.