Queed Part 63

"To my mind she's quite the most attractive dear little thing in town. I suppose she's quite recovered from her disappointment over the--hospital, or whatever it was?"

"Oh, I believe so. I never heard her mention it but once."

West's pleasant face had clouded a little. Through her fluttering veil she noted that fact with distinct satisfaction.

"I never met that interesting young Mr. Surface," said she, sweeping the car around a curve in the white road and evading five women in a surrey with polished skill. "But--truly, I have found myself thinking of him and feeling sorry for him more than once."

"Sorry for him--What about?"

"Oh, haven't you heard, then? It's rather mournful. You see, when Charlotte Weyland found out that he had written a certain editorial in the _Post_--you know more about this part of it than I--"

"But he didn't write it," said West, unhesitatingly. "I wrote it myself."

"You?"

She looked at him with frank surprise in her eyes; not too much frank surprise; rather as one who feels much but endeavors to suppress it for courtesy's sake. "Forgive me--I didn't know. There has been a little horrid gossip but of course nearly every one has thought that he--"

"I'm sure I'm not responsible for what people think," said West, a little aggressively, but with a strangely sinking heart. "There has been not the slightest mystery or attempt at concealment--"

"Oh! Then of course Charlotte knows all about it now?"

"I don't know whether she does or not. When I tried to tell her the whole story," explained West, "soon after the incident occurred, she was so agitated about it, the subject seemed so painful to her, that I was forced to give it up. You can understand my position. Ever since, I have been waiting for an opportunity to take her quietly and straighten out the whole matter for her in a calm and rational way. For her part she has evidently regarded the subject as happily closed. Why under heaven should I press it upon her--merely to gain the academic satisfaction of convincing her that the _Post_ acted on information superior and judgment sounder than her own?"

Miss Avery, now devoting herself to her chauffeur's duties through a moment of silence, was no match for Mr. West at the game of ethical debate, and knew it. However, she held a very strong card in her pongee sleeve, and she knew that too.

"I see--of course. You know I think you have been quite right through it all. And yet--you won't mind?--I can't help feeling sorry for Mr.

Surface."

"Very well--you most mysterious lady. Go on and tell me why you can't help feeling sorry for Mr. Surface."

Miss Avery told him. How she knew anything about the private affairs of Mr. Surface and Miss Weyland, of which it is certain that neither of them had ever spoken, is a mystery, indeed: but Gossip is Argus and has a thousand ears to boot. Miss Avery was careful to depict Sharlee's att.i.tude toward the unfortunate Mr. Surface as just severe enough to suggest to West that he must act at once, and not so severe as to suggest to him--conceivably--the desirability, from a selfish point of view, of not acting at all. It was a task for a diplomat, which is to say a task for a Miss Avery.

"Rather fine of him, wasn't it, to a.s.sume all the blame?--particularly if it's true, as people say," concluded Miss Avery, "that the man's in love with her and she cares nothing for him."

"Fine--splendid--but entirely unnecessary," said West.

The little story had disturbed him greatly. He had had no knowledge of any developments between Sharlee and his former a.s.sistant; and now he was unhappily conscious that he ought to have spoken weeks ago.

"I'm awfully sorry to hear this," he resumed, "for I am much attached to that boy. Still--if, as you say, everything is all right now--"

"Oh, but I don't know at all that it is," said Miss Avery, hastily.

"That is just the point. The last I heard of it, she had forbidden him her house."

"That won't do," said Charles Gardiner West, in a burst of generosity.

"I'll clear up that difficulty before I sleep to-night."

And he was as good as his word, or, let us say, almost as good. The next night but one he called upon Sharlee Weyland with two unalterable purposes in his mind. One was to tell her the full inside history of the reformatory article from the beginning. The other was to notify her in due form that she held his heart in permanent captivity.

To Miss Avery, it made not the slightest difference whether the gifted and charming editor of the Post sold out his principles for a price every morning in the month. At his pleasure he might fracture all of the decalogue that was refinedly fracturable, and so long as he rescued his social position intact from the ruin, he was her man just the same. But she had an instinct, surer than reasoned wisdom, that Sharlee Weyland viewed these matters differently. Therefore she had sent West to make his little confession, face to face. And therefore West, after an hour of delightful _tete-a-tete_ in the charming little back parlor, stiffened himself up, his brow sicklying o'er with the pale cast of disagreeable thought, and began to make it.

"I've got to tell you something about--a subject that won't be welcome to you," he plunged in, rather lugubriously. "I mean--the reformatory."

Sharlee's face, which had been merry and sweet, instantly changed and quieted at that word; interest sprang full-armed in her deep blue eyes.

"Have you? Tell me anything about it you wish."

"You remember that--last editorial in the _Post?_"

"Do you think that I forget so easily?"

West hardly liked that reply. Nor had he ever supposed that he would find the subject so difficult.

"Well! I was surprised and--hurt to learn--recently--that you had--well, had been rather severe with Surface, under the impression that--the full responsibility for that article was his."

Sharlee sat in the same flowered arm-chair she had once occupied to put this same Surface, then known as little Dr. Queed, in his place. Her heart warmed to West for his generous impulse to intercede. Still, she hardly conceived that her treatment of Mr. Surface was any concern of Mr. West's.

"And so?"

"I must tell you," he said, oddly uneasy under her straightforward look, "that--that you have made a mistake. The responsibility is mine."

"Ah, you mean that you, as the editor, are willing to take it."

"No," said West--"no"; and then suddenly he felt like a rash suicide, repentant at the last moment. Already the waters were rushing over his head; he felt a wild impulse to clutch at the life-belt she had flung out to him. It is to be remembered to his credit that he conquered it.

"No,--I--I wrote the article myself."

"You?"

Her monosyllable had been Miss Avery's, but there resemblance parted.

Sharlee sat still in her chair, and presently her lashes fluttered and fell. To West's surprise, a beautiful color swept upward from her throat to drown in her rough dark hair. "Oh," said she, under her breath, "I'm glad--so _glad!_"

West heaved a great sigh of relief. It was all over, and she was glad.

Hadn't he known all along that a woman will always forgive everything in the man she loves? She was glad because he had told her when another man might have kept silent. And yet her look perplexed him; her words perplexed him. Undoubtedly she must have something more to say than a mere expression of vague general gladness over the situation.

"Need I say that I never intended there should be any doubt about the matter? I meant to explain it all to you long ago, only there never seemed to be any suitable opportunity."

Sharlee's color died away. In silence she raised her eyes and looked at him.

"I started to tell you all about it once, at the time, but you know," he said, with a little nervous laugh, "you seemed to find the subject so extremely painful then--that I thought I had better wait till you could look at it more calmly."

Still she said nothing, but only sat still in her chair and looked at him.

"I shall always regret," continued West, laboriously, "that my--silence, which I a.s.sure you I meant in kindness, should have--Why do you look at me that way, Miss Weyland?" he said, with a quick change of voice. "I don't understand you."

Sharlee gave a small start and said: "Was I looking at you in any particular way?"

"You looked as mournful," said West, with that same little laugh, "as though you had lost your last friend. Now--"

"No, not my last one," said Sharlee.