“I don’t quite understand, Mr. Richmond,” said she, after a thoughtful pause. “You say that you are—you———”
“I am poor and obscure, and I am unfortunate enough to love—to love the daughter of a distinguished family—you—you, Amber. What is to be the conclusion of the story—my love story?—the conclusion of it rests with you.”
Amber heard the quill pens about going scrawl, and the steel pens going scratch and the pencils going scribble. The voice of Mr. Richmond had not been raised louder than the voice of the pens. She was too much astonished to be able to reply at once. But soon the reply came.
This was it.
She picked up her little morocco writing case and folded it carefully and fastened the elastic band over it, then she picked up her parasol, rose, and went to the door, without a word.
He was before her at the door; he held it open for her. She went out without a word.
He was in no way overcome. He simply walked to another desk at which a girl was scribbling. He said a few words of commendation to her. Then he crossed the room to where Miss Quartz Mica Hanker was sitting industriously idle. He knew she was giving all her thoughts to the solution of the problem which he had offered to her, and this was real industry.
“Dear Miss Quartz,” he said in his low earnest voice—every time he conversed with her in this voice it was not the white rose that was suggested by her cheeks. “Dear Miss Quartz, are you making the attempt to work out the question which I have enunciated for you—believe me, it was for you only I enunciated it—a Time Study? Ah, it is with me for all time—that problem. Miss Quartz, will you try to suggest a happy conclusion to the parable which I have just uttered, when I tell you that I am in the position of the man and that I think of you in the position of the girl?”
Miss Quartz proved herself to be a far more apt student of the obscure than Miss Severn. She looked down at the blank paper in front of her saying:
“I wonder if you mean that—that—you——