XXXVIIIAN OFFICE OF THE WORLD
DICKY was in the street and it was still only ten in the morning. The first thing he did then was to telegraph Pidge of his arrival; that all was well, and for her not to hurry. He spent the day atThe Public Squareoffices studying the books, reading up in the files. He fancied that he found an aggressive sort of integrity here and there through the systems, that was familiar. The publishing property had weathered the war; it was a building base. Dicky found much that he liked, but fought enthusiasm—fought back a rush of possessive impulses, until he was tired.
At six, when he reached Harrow Street, for the first time, he was not permitted to use the key to the street door that he had carried so long, for Miss Claes met him at the basement entrance. He had heard her voice over the telephone in the morning, but had not remotely anticipated the stir of feeling that the sight of her awakened. No emotionless reporter about Mr. Cobden at this moment. He followed her to the open fire; the door was shut. They stood together in silence, and he had never seen her look so well.
“Why, Miss Claes, you are just the same!” he was saying. “I mean, all day I have been seeing the ravagesof the war years in the people at home, in John Higgins, in everybody. But you——”
“Your coming makes me happy.”
Firelight and a fragrant room, and the stillness of Harrow Street. Miss Claes was speaking of Nagar—of Pidge—of Pidge and the child—of Rufus Melton—of Fanny Gallup—of himself—as if they were all one, all blent in destiny.... Pidge had taken the child to Los Angeles.
A ring at the street door! Dicky watched Miss Claes’ face as she left the room, purse in hand. She returned in a moment with a telegram for him.
Welcome home. So glad to hear, so relieved. Needed here a little longer.Pidge.
Welcome home. So glad to hear, so relieved. Needed here a little longer.
Pidge.
The door shut again.... Miss Claes had heard of everything—even of his experience with Rufe Melton in Paris, and from Pidge what Ames had told John Higgins.
“I should have put Ames wise about that,” Dicky told her. “It was pretty hard to have Pidge hurt that way.”
“She brought home the news exultingly,” Miss Claes said. “Hurt, of course—her old sorrow for Rufus Melton, but a compensating gladness, too. You would have to be a woman, to feel exactly what it meant to her. Pidge learned that day that you were close enough in sympathy to share her work. That was light to her out of the depths.”
Dicky studied the shadowy face.
“Pidge accepts no revelations from the sacred writings,” Miss Claes added. “Only messages of action count with her. Your action in Paris freshened up her life—that you had been brave enough to help her with her task. And how richly Pidge will pay!”
“It wasn’t hard to do, but hard to know that it was the thing to do.”
“All that matters now is that it is done. One crosses a goal, or one does not. The rest is forgotten.”
He told her of John Higgins andThe Public Square; of his talk in the morning and the day with the files. She inquired regarding details, mechanical and commercial—her same old rational grasp upon materials. Of course, he did not speak of John Higgins’ secret, nor of his own possible purchase. It was a matter of mercantile tradition in the Cobden house not to discuss an incompleted transaction; but he told her of Pidge’s part at the time of the arrest of the editor’s old friend.
“John Higgins calls her ‘The Weekly,’” he added. “He says it was Pidge who kept the paper going.”
Miss Claes turned to the fire to smile. Dicky didn’t notice. He was lost in the problem of how John Higgins could give half-interest to Pidge, and sell it to himself at the same time.... They were speaking of India.
“Of course, I’ve arranged to go,” he said. “Nagar promises the story of the age——”
“Nagar sent his message here for you, in case you did not receive word from thesepoyin Paris—‘No haste, but no delay.’”
He started. This house of Harrow Street seemed like an office of all the world to him to-night.
“... The hardest part is with my people—for me to go away again,” he was saying, a little later at the door. “Of course, they can’t understand—my mother and aunt and sister. Everything looks all right, except that—leaving them so soon again.”
“Perhaps I can help a little. I’ll go to them often—while you are away.”
“That’s quite too good for me to think of,” he said, and told her of Pidge’s call. “Why, Miss Claes, I haven’t known what it meant to be rested and straightened out like this—since Ahmedabad,” he said at last.
Her hand was raised before him:
“Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just—go to them—and come back when you can. This also is your home always.”