As he looked about, however, he saw the pudgy little man bending over his little red notebook, writing very carefully with his fountain pen, and forbore to interrupt.
"Are you glad, girl?" he turned to Sara very soberly, motioning the Arabs to take away the rug as he did so.
"Hammer, dear," she whispered, "I'm happy!"
His face had lost the old lines of hardness and bitterness, and as he met her eyes and smiled into them with perfect understanding, he remembered something.
"But—my name isn't Hammer, dear! You'll have to be Mrs. Cyrus Murray——"
"Yes, but you'll be just Hammer, to me!"
"There!" and Solomon clapped his notebook shut with a very complacent air. "I'd been and overlooked that 'ere account wi' Dr. Krausz; but it's all ship-shape and proper now to file away and 'ave done with."
"Oh, your account!" laughed the American. "That's the one you presented to him, eh? Do you always keep your accounts, John?"
"Werry good plan, sir. They come in 'andy, like, mortal often, even if they're filed away. Howsoever, sir and miss, business is all werry well in its place, but its place ain't between two young 'earts, I says—and since this 'ere account is closed, I'll just file it away."
And as he shuffled off in his carpet-slippers toward his own cabin, the two who sat side by side gazed after him for a moment, smiling, and then turned to each other.