Amaryllis rose as he entered, and almost ran to meet him.
"Oh, Randal!" she cried.
He had known his gentle doom on the Friday; and her "Randal," tout court, sealed it, for never had she used his name so to him before. It came now, he knew, not in his own right, but through Dick.
In a single emotion, he was sorry and glad—more glad, he told himself, than sorry. For the sadness seemed to have been with him a long time, while the joy was new.
A little while she babbled of the trouble and pain she had given them.
"You and poor dad! If only I could have yelled out in time!"
"To get a knife in you, my dear—no, it's been all just right. Why, we should never have got the Dope of the Gods back, without you."
And when she laughed, he told her how her father had growled: "Oh, damn the Ambrotox!" and how he had lectured the potentate on nervous exhaustion.
But when a little silence fell between them, Amaryllis took a deep breath and plunged, saying in a half-stifled voice, "I want to tell you something."
"Tell away, child," he replied, smiling benignantly on her, though his heart beat heavily, telling him her tale beforehand.