And that was all the hint required by clever Mr. Surface, the famous social scientist. He advanced somehow, and took her in his arms. On the whole, it was rather surprising how satisfactorily he did it, considering that she was the first woman he had ever touched in all his days.
So they stood through a time that might have been a minute and might have been an age, since all of them that mattered had soared away to the sunlit spaces where no time is. After awhile, driven by a strange fierce desire to see her face in the light of this new glory, he made a gentle effort to hold her off from him, but she clung to him, crying, "No, no! I don't want you to see me yet."
After another interval of uncertain length, she said:—
"All along my heart has cried out that you couldn't have done that, and hurt me so. You couldn't. I will never doubt my heart again. And you were so fine—so fine—to forgive me so easily."
In the midst of his dizzying exaltation, he marveled at the ease with which she spoke her inmost feeling; he, the great apostle of reason and self-mastery, was much slower in recovering lost voice and control. It was some time before he would trust himself to speak, and even then the voice that he used was not recognizable as his.
"So you are willing to do as much for my father's son as to—to—take his name for your own."
"No, this is something that I am doing for myself. Your father was not perfect, but he was the only father that ever had a son whose name I would take for mine."
A silence.
"We can keep my father's house," he said, in time, "for—for—us to live in. You must give up the office. And I will find light remunerative work, which will leave at least part of my time free for my book."
She gave a little laugh that was half a sob. "Perhaps—you could persuade that wealthy old lady—to get out a second edition of her thesaurus!"