Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/191

THE IVORY TOWER But Horton had already taken him easily up. "Of course I know, my dear man, that he particularly wants to see me. He has written me nothing else from the moment he arrived."

"He has written you, you wretch," Cissy at once extravagantly echoed—"he has written you all sorts of things and you haven't so much as told me?"

"He hasn't written me all sorts of things"—Horton directed this answer to Davey alone—"but has written me in such straight confidence and friendship that I've been wondering if I mayn't go round to him this evening."

"Gussy will no doubt excuse you for that purpose with the utmost joy," Davey rejoined—"though I don't think I advise you to ask her leave if you don't want her at once to insist on going with you. Go to him alone, very quietly—and with the happy confidence of doing him good."

It had been on Cissy that, for his part, Davey had, in speaking, rested his eyes; and it might by the same token have been for the benefit of universal nature, suspended to listen over the bosom of the deep, that Horton's lips phrased his frank reaction upon their entertainer's words. "Well then, ye powers, the amount of good that I shall undertake!"

Davey Bradham and Cissy Foy exchanged on the whole ground for a moment a considerable 177