A slow wonderful smile trembled on her lips. “My dear,” she said; “I have waited for you all my life.”
Suddenly her arms were around him; her cheek was pressed to his own; the breath of her whisper was at his ear.
“Oh, forgive me! I will make it up to you, my dear; my dearest!”
Out in the wind and the rain Chester Kent drew in the deep breath of satisfied and rounded achievement. He had beheld, against the wide window-shade two shadows, which, standing motionless for a moment, a few feet apart, had drawn slowly together as by some irresistible magnetism, and suddenly merged into one. The unintentional eavesdropper nodded, in grave gratulation to the house, then turned away.
“Finished!” he said. “C’est conclu. Finis. Telos. Das Ende. And any or all other words of whatever language, meaning a sound conclusion!”
Half an hour later he entered, with due preliminary stamping of mud from clogged feet. Instantly Marjorie went over to him.
“Why, you’re wet as a rag!” she cried with a sweetly unconscious assumption of proprietary interest. “You must go and change at once!” she added, patting his shoulder.
Kent reached for his ear, changed his mind midway, and scratched his nose. “All right,” he said meekly. Over his rather stern-set face there came a singularly winning smile. “You two—” he said: “that’s as it should be. That’s worth everything.”
“No other congratulations will ever sound so good as that, Chet,” said Sedgwick in a low voice; “or so unselfish. You’ve had all the heat and toil of the great game, and I have all the happiness.”
“Not quite all, I fancy,” returned Kent, smiling at Marjorie.