Page:The Better Sort (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1903).djvu/440

THE BETTER SORT Maud wondered. "So soon?"

"If he returned to-night, and it's not yet ten o'clock, there's plenty of time. It will be in all of them—while the universe waits. He'll hold us in the hollow of his hand. His chance is just there. And there," said the young man, "will be his greatness."

"Greater than ever then?"

"Quadrupled."

She followed; then it made her seize his arm. "Go to him!"

Bight frowned. "'Go'?"

"This instant. You explain!"

He understood, but only to shake his head. "Never again. I bow to him."

Well, she after a little understood; but she thought again.

"You mean that the great hole is that he really had no reason, no funk?"

"I've wondered," said Howard Bight.

"Whether he had done anything to make publicity embarrassing?"

"I've wondered," the young man repeated.

"But I thought you knew!"

"So did I. But I thought also I knew he was dead. However," Bight added, "he'll explain that too."

"To-morrow?"

"No—as a different branch. Say day after."

"Ah, then," said Maud, "if he explains!"

"There's no hole? I don't know!"—and it forced from him at last a sigh. He was impatient of it, for he had done with it; it would soon bore him. So fast they lived. "It will take," he only dropped, "much explaining."

His detachment was logical, but she looked a moment at his sudden weariness. "There's always, remember, Mrs. Chorner." 428