“We’ve gone through this together, and you’ve helped me––I can’t tell you how much, honey. Only, I hope we can go through a lot more trouble together. There’s plenty of it ahead.”
She felt proud and meek and dismally happy. She squeezed his big hand again in both of hers and sighed, with a smile:
“I hope so.”
Then he pressed the buzzer, and Miss Gabus was inside the door with suspicious promptitude. Davidge said:
“Mr. Avery, please––and the others––all the others right away. Ask them to come here; and you might come back, Miss Gabus.”
Mr. Avery, the chief clerk, and other clerks and stenographers, gathered, wondering what was about to happen. Some of them came grinning, for when they had asked Miss Gabus what was up she had guessed: “I reckon he’s goin’ to announce his engagement.”
The office force came in like an ill-drilled comic-opera chorus. Davidge waited till the last-comer was waiting. Then he said:
“Folks, I’ve just had bad news. The Clara––they got her! The Germans got her. She was blown up by a bomb. She was two days out and going like a greyhound when she sank with all on board except six of the crew who got away in a life-boat and were picked up by a tramp.”
There was a shock of silence, then a hubbub of gasps, oaths, of incredulous protests.