It was a large office, covering most of a floor of an imposing office building. On a glass door were the names of the partners, that of Philip Ansley standing first on the list and in bigger letters than the rest. In the anteroom an impersonal young lady reading a magazine said, by telephone, "Mr. Whitelaw to see Mr. Ansley."
The business of the day was over. As Tom passed through a corridor from which most of the private offices opened he saw that they were empty. The only one still occupied was at the most distant end, and there he found Philip Ansley. He found also his wife. The purpose of Tom's visit having been made clear by letter, both of Hildred's parents were concerned in it.
They welcomed him cordially, making the comments permissible to old friends on his improved personal appearance. They asked for his news; they gave their own. Guy was back at Harvard at the Law School; Hildred was at home, somewhat at loose ends. Like most girls who had worked in France, she found a life of leisure tedious.
"Eating her head off," Ansley complained. "Can't settle down again."
Mrs. Ansley was more heroic. "We accept it. It's part of what we offered up to the Great Cause. We gave our all, and though all was not taken from us we should not have murmured if it had been."
Taking advantage of this turn of the talk, Tom launched into his appeal. For the last time in his life, as he hoped, he told the story of his mother. As he had told it to Hildred and to Henry Whitelaw so now he gave it to Philip and Sunshine Ansley. Hating the task, he was upheld in carrying it through by the knowledge that everyone who had a right to know it knew it now.
He finished with the minute at which Guy first spoke to him. From that point onward they had been able to follow the course of his life for themselves. They had in a measure entered into it, and helped him to his opportunities. He thanked them; but before he could accept their goodwill again he wanted them to know exactly what he had sprung from. Hildred did know. She had known it for several years. It had made no difference to her; he hoped so to make good in the future that it would make no difference to them.
They listened attentively, with no sign of being shocked. Now and then, at such points as the stealing of the first little book, or the final arrest, one or the other would murmur a "Dear me!" but sympathy and pity were plainly their sentiments. They didn't condemn him; they didn't even blame him. He had been an unfortunate child. There was nothing to be thought of him but that.
After he had finished there was a silence that seemed long. Ansley sat at his desk, leaning back in his revolving chair. Mrs. Ansley was near a window, where she could to some extent shield herself by looking out. She left to her husband the duty of speaking the first word.