Brachey stepped within, and closed the door. Here they were, these two, at last, shut together in a room. It was a moment of high tension.
“Sit down,” said Doane, still busying himself at the table, but waving an immense hand toward the other small chair.
But Brachey stood... waiting... in his hand a folded paper.
Finally Doane lifted his head, with a brusk but not unpleasant, “Yes, sir?”
Brachey, for a moment, pressed his lips tightly together.
“Mr. Doane,” he said then, clipping his words off short, “may I first ask you to read this cablegram?”
Doane took the paper, started to unfold it, but then dropped it on the table and stepped forward.
And now for the first time Brachey sensed, behind this great frame and the weary, haggard face, the real Griggsby Doane; and stood very still, fighting for control over the confusion in his aching head. This was, he saw now, a strong man; a great deal more of a personality than he had supposed he would find. Even before the next words, he felt something of what was coming, something of the vigorous honesty of the man. Doane had been through recent suffering, that was clear Something—-and even then, in one of his keen mental dashes, Brachey suspected that it was a much more personal experience than the Looker attack—something had upset him. This wasn't a man to turn baby over a wound, or to lose his head in a little fighting. No, it was an illness of the soul that had hollowed the eyes and deepened the grooves between them. But it didn't matter. What did matter was that he was now, in this gentle mood, surprisingly like Betty. For she had a curious vein of honesty; and she said, at times, just such unexpectedly frank, wholly open things as he felt (with an opening heart) that the father was about to say now.
“Mr. Brachey”—this was what he said, with extraordinary simplicity of manner—“can you take my hand?”
If Brachey had spoken his reply his voice would have broken. Instead he gripped the proffered hand. And during a brief moment they stood there.