Lana took his hand between her palms and stopped him at the edge of the screen. She quoted, meeting his adoring eyes with full understanding:
"And I think, in the lives of most women and men,
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even—"
She drew him gently with her when she stepped backward.
She had heard the Senator's voice in the corridor; he was escorting
Governor North.
On the panels of the screen were embroidered some particularly grotesque Japanese countenances. Those pictured personages seemed to be making up faces at the dignitaries who passed the open door.
"But I must go to your father, sweetheart," Stewart insisted. "I'd best do it this morning and have it all over with."
This declaration as to duty and deference was not made while Senator Corson was passing the door; nor was it made with anything like the promptitude the Senator might have expected in a matter which was so vitally concerned with a father's interests. In fact it was a long, long time before Stewart had anything to say on that subject. If Senator Corson had been listening again on the other side of the screen, he, no doubt, would have been mightily offended by a delay which seemed to make the father an afterthought in the whole business.
If he had been eavesdropping he would not have heard much, anyway, of an informing nature. He would have heard two voices, tenderly low and incoherent, interrupting eagerly, breaking in on each other to explain and protest and plead. If Stewart's protracted neglect of the interests of a father would have availed to rouse resentment, Lana's reply to Stewart's rueful declaration more surely would have exasperated the Senator; she emphatically commanded Stewart to say not one word on the subject to her father.
"Why, Stewart Morrison, for twenty-four hours you have been taking away my breath by doing the unexpected! You have been grand. Now are you going to spoil everything by dropping right back into the conventional, every-day way of doing things? You shall not! You shall not spoil my new worship of a hero!"
"Well, I won't seem much like a hero if I act as though I'm afraid of your father!"