Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/159

THE IVORY TOWER exactly serve for his putting his document to sleep. So then he slipped it in, rejoicing in the tight fit of the drawer, carefully making the two divisions of the protective door meet, turning the little gold key in its lock and finally, with his friend's permission, attaching the key to a small silver ring carried in his pocket and serving for a cluster of others. With this question at rest it seemed at once, and as with an effect out of proportion to the cause, that a great space before them had been cleared: they looked at each other over it as if they had become more intimate, and as if now, in the free air, the enormities already named loomed up again. All of which was expressed in Gray's next words.

"May I ask you, in reference to something you just now said, whether my uncle took action for leaving me money before our meeting could be in question? Because if he did, you know, I understand less than ever. That he should want to see me if he was thinking of me, that of course I can conceive; but that he shouldn't wait till he had seen me is what I find extraordinary."

If she gave him the impression of keeping her answer back a little, it wasn't, he was next to see, that she was not fully sure of it. "He had seen you."

"You mean as a small boy?"

"No—at this distance of time that didn't count." She had another wait, but also another assurance. "He had seen you in the great fact about you." 145