Hours afterward, when it was over, Vina looked into Bedient's face, saying:
"You may ask David—why I hesitated—that first moment."
"I know, Vina—God love you!"
Before they left the hospital, he said: "We won't speak of this to-night…. Everything is arranged…. To-morrow morning, we will come for the little boy…. It is time for us to be at the Club."
"I had forgotten," Vina answered vaguely.
* * * * *
Kate Wilkes and Marguerite Grey were waiting that evening in the Club library. David Cairns had left them a moment before, called to the telephone.
"Rather a contrast from that other night when we foregathered to meet The Modern—fresh from the sea," Kate Wilkes observed.
"Yes," said the Grey One.
"David no longer belongs to the coasting-trade in letters," Kate Wilkes went on whimsically. "He has emerged from a most stubborn case of boyhood. Now he's got Vina's big spirit, and she has her happiness and is doing her masterpiece——"