“Well, there’s only one way you can prove it to me!” He shut the door of the office and stood with his back against it, and caught hold of her and pulled her to him.
“But I’m—I’m going to prove it to you, Luke! On my birthday! The—the very day I’m twenty! I——”
“Prove it now! To-day. That’s how you can prove it, and that’s the only way!”
They were very difficult minutes. She came out of the scene shaken and unhappy, and Luke flung himself out of the room in a dark and silent fury, and Peter Parker came in by the other door, leaving it open behind him, so that he was a silhouette against the greenness of the lane. Ever since learning of old Ben Birdsall’s perfidy the youth had been taking a keen if clumsy interest in the business end of the Altonia, idling about the office and asking childish questions, to the intense irritation of the superintendent.
“If he knew anything, sir,” he complained to Mr. Carey, “the Lord knows we’d be glad to have his help, but just to have him nosing round, asking fool questions——”
“I know, I know, Luke,” said the senior partner sympathetically. “It’s mighty trying on you, I can see that. And the doctor won’t let me go down for another week or ten days, so I can’t help you out. But we can hardly throw him out of his own office, can we? Might look,” he chuckled, “as if there was something we didn’t want him to find! Something we wanted to keep covered up! But I’ll tell you, Luke, the young folks are going to have a house-party out to Beulah-land, and that’ll keep him amused, I reckon!”
And now the junior partner regarded the superintendent’s assistant with delight. “I am glad to see you,” he beamed. “It’s amazing, how cleverly you arrange these little secret meetings of ours!” He stepped nimbly after her and got between her and the door.
Glen moved toward the other door, slowly, so that it might be quite clear that he was not succeeding in flustering her, and he followed her just as slowly, and again prevented her exit.
“I’d better put my hands behind me,” he said wistfully, “because if I don’t, I shall touch your hair.... I’ve always wanted to ... but I don’t want to unless you want me to!” He waited hopefully, and then sighed a little. “It would be a very simple way for you to give a great deal of innocent pleasure, you know. A fellow could warm his hands in your hair ... he could warm his heart in it....” He smiled at her, a little uncertainly, with his wide and humorous mouth, and passed gently from the room by the other door.
Glen Darrow stood staring after him; it was a strange chance, a plethora of episode, which gave her two scenes with two different suitors in ten minutes in the same dingy old office, but they were poles apart, for one was the golden lad of the golden legend, her father’s familiar friend, the splendid young savage, the bold and beautiful mountaineer who had made full use of his time and talents, and one was the slim and fair young waster, the cumberer of the earth, on whom she and Black Orlo were utterly agreed.