“Then, wait a little while,” she interrupted; “we have permission to see the papers signed.”
A smile of mischief alone betrayed her recognition of his bewilderment.
Why should the signing be treated as a matter of such importance? It must mean a great deal to her and hers. The hour was now about half-past eleven, and he remembered that in a short time it would have been too late.
She led him through the adjoining room and to the curtained doorway of a library—long, alcoved, shelved with books, and furnished with heavy leather chairs. In the center was a large table of polished mahogany, upon which rested a reading-lamp.
The glow of this lamp illuminated the forms and faces of a group of serious-faced men—two seated, the others standing. In the golden light, with the dim background of shelves, surmounted here and there by a vase or a classic bust, the group impressed Orme like a stately painting—a tableau distinguished by solemn dignity.
“We are to remain here and keep very quiet,” whispered the girl.
Orme nodded. His eyes were fixed on the face of a man who sat at the table, a pen poised in his hand. Those strong, straight features—the eyes, with their look of sympathetic comprehension, so like the girl’s—the lips, eloquent in their calmness—surely this was her father. But Orme’s heart beat faster, for the face of this man, framed in its wavy gray hair, was familiar. He seemed to know every line of it.
Where had he seen this man? That they had never met, he felt certain, unless, indeed, they had shaken hands in a casual and forgotten introduction.
Or was he led into a feeling of recognition by the undoubted resemblance of father to daughter? No, it could not be that; and yet this man, or his picture—ah! The recognition came to Orme in a flash.
This was the magnetic face that was now so often appearing in the press—the face of the great, the revered, the able statesman upon whom rested so great a part of the burden of the country’s welfare. No wonder that Orme recognized it, for it was the face of the Secretary of State! And the girl was his daughter.