"All along my heart has cried out that you couldn't have done that, and
hurt me so. _You couldn't_. I will never doubt my heart again. And you
were so fine--so fine--to forgive me so easily."
In the midst of his dizzying exaltation, he marveled at the ease with
which she spoke her inmost feeling; he, the great apostle of reason and
self-mastery, was much slower in recovering lost voice and control. It
was some time before he would trust himself to speak, and even then the
voice that he used was not recognizable as his.
"So you are willing to do as much for my father's son as to--to--take
his name for your own."
"No, this is something that I am doing for myself. Your father was not
perfect, but he was the only father that ever had a son whose name I
would take for mine."
A silence.
"We can keep my father's house," he said, in time, "for--for--us to live
in. You must give up the office. And I will find light remunerative
work, which will leave at least part of my time free for my book."
She gave a little laugh that was half a sob. "Perhaps--you could
persuade that wealthy old lady--to get out a second edition of her
_thesaurus!_"
"I wish I could, though!"
"You talk just like my little Doctor," she gasped--"my--own little
Doctor.... I've got a little surprise for you--about remunerative
work," she went on, "only I can't tell you now, because it's a secret.
Promise that you won't make me tell you."
He promised.
Suddenly, without knowing why, she began to cry, her cheek against his
breast. "You've had a sad life, little Doctor--a sad life. But I am
going to make it all up to you--if you will show me the way."
Presently she became aware that her telephone was ringing, and ringing
as though it had been at it for some time.
"Oh bother! They won't let us have even a little minute together after
all these years. I suppose you must let me go--"
She turned from the desk with the most beautiful smile he had ever seen
upon a face.
"It's for you!"
"For me?" he echoed like a man in a dream. "That is--very strange."
Strange, indeed! Outside, the dull world was wagging on as before,
unaware that there had taken place in this enchanted room the most
momentous event in history.
He took the receiver from her with a left hand which trembled, and with
his untrained right somehow caught and imprisoned both of hers. "Stand
right by me," he begged hurriedly.
Now he hoisted the receiver in the general direction of his ear, and
said in what he doubtless thought was quite a businesslike manner:
"Well?"
"Mr. Queed? This is Mr. Hickok," said the incisive voice over the wire.
"Well, what in the mischief are you doing up there?"
"I'm--I'm--transacting some important business--with the Department,"
said Mr. Surface, and gave Sharlee's hands a desperate squeeze. "But
my--"
"Well, we're transacting some important business down here. Never should
have found you but for Mr. Dayne's happening along. Did you know that
West had resigned?"
"No, has he? But I started--"
"Peace to his ashes. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The directors are
meeting now to elect his successor. Only one name has been mentioned.
There's only one editor we'll hear of for the paper. Won't you come back
to us, my boy?"
The young man cleared his throat. "Come? I'd--think it the greatest
honor--there's nothing I'd rather have. You are all too--too kind to
me--I can't tell you--but--"
"Oh, no buts! But us no buts now! I'll go tell them--"
"No--wait," called the young man, hastily. "If I come, I don't come as
Queed, you know. My name is Henry G. Surface. That may make a
difference--"
"Come as Beelzebub!" said the old man, testily. "We've had enough of
hiring a _name_ for the _Post_. This time we're after a man, and by the
Lord, we've got one!"
Henry Surface turned away from the telephone, struggling with less than
his usual success to show an unmoved face.
"You--know?"
She nodded: in her blue-spar eyes, there was the look of a winged
victory. "That was the little secret--don't you think it was a nice one?
It is your magnificent boast come true.... And you don't even say 'I
told you so'!"
He looked past her out into the park. Over the budding trees, already
bursting and spreading their fans of green, far off over the jagged
stretch of roofs, his gaze sought the battered gray _Post_ building and
the row of windows behind which he had so often sat and worked. A mist
came before his eyes; the trees curveted and swam; and his visible world
swung upside down and went out in a singing and spark-shot blackness.
She came to his side again: in silence slipped her hand into his; and
following both his look and his thought, she felt her own eyes smart
with a sudden bright dimness.
"This is the best city in the world," said Henry Surface. "The kindest
people--the _kindest people_--"
"Yes, little Doctor."
He turned abruptly and caught her to him again; and now, hearing even
above the hammering of his own blood the wild fluttering of her heart
against his, his tongue unlocked and he began to speak his heart. It was
not speech as he had always known speech. In all his wonderful array of
terminology there were no words fitted to this undreamed need; he had to
discover them somehow, by main strength make them up for himself; and
they came out stammering, hard-wrung, bearing new upon their rough faces
the mint-mark of his own heart. Perhaps she did not prize them any the
less on that account.
"I'm glad that you love me that way--Henry. I must call you Henry
now--mustn't I, Henry?"
"Do you know," she said, after a time, "I am--_almost_ weakening about
giving our money for a Home. Somehow, I'd so like for you to have it, so
that--"
She felt a little shiver run through him.
"No, no! I could not bear to touch it. We shall be far happier--"
"You could stop work, buy yourself comforts, pleasures, trips. It is a
mad thing," she teased, "to give away money.... Oh, little Doctor--I
can't breathe if you hold me--so tight."
"About the name," he said presently, "I--dislike to oppose you, but I
cannot--I cannot--"
"Well, I've decided to change it, Henry, in deference to your wishes."
"I am extremely glad. I myself know a name--"
"Instead of calling it the Henry G. Surface Home--"
Suddenly she drew away from him, leaving behind both her hands for a
keepsake, and raised to him a look so luminous and radiant that he felt
himself awed before it, like one who with impious feet has blundered
upon holy ground.
"I am going to call it the Henry G. Surface _Junior_ Home. Do you know
any name for a Home so pretty as that?"
"No, no, I--can't let you--"
But she cried him down passionately, saying: "Yes, that is _our_ name
now, and we are going to make it honorable."
From his place beside the sociological bookcase--perhaps faunal
naturalists can tell us why--the great pleasure-dog Behemoth, whose
presence they had both forgotten, raised his leonine head and gave a
sharp, joyous bark.