I was about to speak (or cough) when Molly entered. He shut the book with a snap, stood up, heaved a deep sigh, and cleared his throat.
"George," he said, "I found a newspaper cutting in my bedroom when I was dressing this morning. Whose is it?"
I hesitated. It was very deplorable to have to give one's only daughter away; but I saw no help for it.
"I'm afraid," I explained, in great, gusty shouts, "that Molly must have dropped it last night. She went into your bedroom for something and . . ." I paused for more breath.
"Whassat?" he asked, with a trumpet-shaped hand to his ear.
I again went over the explanation of this most unfortunate occurrence, and he grasped it hazily and suspiciously, as a man whose eyes are seeking to fathom the interior of a darkened room.
"I don't know how it got there," he mumbled. "But—George—I'm glad!"
He looked at me searchingly, and for the first time I seemed to see him as he really was—a rather pathetic, bent old man, bowed with the weight of a great invisible something—a shadow—a menace! But even as he stood there, his body suddenly straightened itself and his eyes lit up with a strange brightness. It was as though a quick flutter of youth had run through his veins.
"You've read it?" he asked.
"Yes," I confessed.