Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/156

THE IVORY TOWER "You needn't answer ever."

"Oh well then it can wait. But you're right—it mustn't just wait in my pocket."

This pleased her. "As I say, it must have a place of its own."

He considered of that. "You mean that when I have read it I may still want to treasure it?"

She had in hand again the great fan that hung by a long fine chain from her girdle, and, flaring it open, she rapidly closed it again, the motion seeming to relieve her. "I mean that my father has written you at this end of his days and that that's all I know about it."

"You asked him no question?"

"As to why he should write? I wouldn't," said Rosanna, "have asked him for the world. It's many a day since we've done that, either he or I—at least when a question could have a sense."

"Thank you then," Gray smiled, "for answering mine." He looked about him for whatever might still help them, and of a sudden had a light. "Why the ivory tower!" And while her eyes followed: "That beautiful old thing on the top of the secretary—happy thought if it is old!" He had seen at a glance that this object was what they wanted, and, a nearer view confirming the thought, had reached for it and taken it down. "There it was waiting for you. Isn't it an ivory tower, and doesn't living in an ivory tower just mean the most distinguished retirement? I don't 142