A MELIA CARLSON'S OFFICE was large and the wide window overlooking Halifax Harbor kept it well lit in spite of the traditional dark woods of the paneling and furniture. Nothing in the room screamed money, but everything said it quietly, well aware - given the quality of the furnishings - that shouting wasn't necessary to make the point. All right, Algoma Hill, the Lauren Harris painting hanging across from her desk, screamed money but only because the price paid during the So-theby's auction, while unfortunately not a record, had been high enough to make the front page of even the American papers. She'd purchased it anonymously, of course, but the people it had been bought to impress recognized it and exhibited the expected sticker shock. So much easier to attract investors when her personal salary allowed her to purchase a painting by one of the Group of Seven. And they said that when her father died, the company had died with him. She may have been a competent Vice President of Exploration and Development, but they didn't hesitate to announce that a fort . . . thirty-six-year-old woman with a twent . . . fifteen-year-old engineering degree couldn't run the second largest oil company in the Maritimes. She wasn't a member of the old boys' club and she wasn't a hot, young Ph. D who'd picked up an MBA on the way to a petrochemical doctorate. Worst of all, at least to those running the largest oil