"When you saw uncle last night, did you tell him about—about us?"
"I did not," he answered. "I remembered you had said nothing about telling any one. It is for you—isn't it?—to decide whether we take the world into our confidence at once or later on."
"Then will you tell him?" She looked down at her clasped hands. "I wish you to tell him. Perhaps if you think you will guess why. There! that is settled." She lifted her eyes again to his, and for a time there was silence between them.
He leaned back at length in the deep chair. "What a world!" he said. "Mabel, will you play something on the piano that expresses mere joy, the genuine article, nothing feverish or like thorns under a pot, but joy that has decided in favor of the universe. It's a mood that can't last altogether, so we had better get all we can out of it."
She went to the instrument and struck a few chords while she thought. Then she began to work with all her soul at the theme in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony which is like the sound of the opening of the gates of Paradise.
CHAPTER XIV
DOUBLE CUNNING
An old oaken desk with a deep body stood by the window in a room that overlooked St. James's Park from a height. The room was large, furnished and decorated in the mode by someone who had brought taste to the work; but the hand of the bachelor lay heavy upon it. John Marlowe unlocked the desk and drew a long, stout envelop from the back of the well.
"I understand," he said to Mr. Cupples, "that you have read this."