It was in the manner of the old days that she turned to him and asked what he thought it could be.

The suggestion—­possibility—­swept them back to the old basis, the old relationship.  Katie grew excited, unnerved, and he talked to her soothingly while she waited for central to call again.

They spoke of what it probably was; her brother was in Chicago, Katie told him, and of course it was he, and something about his own affairs.  Perhaps he had news of when he would be ordered away.  Yes, without doubt that was it.

But there was a consciousness of dissembling.  They were drawn together by the possibility they did not mention, drawn together in the very thing of not mentioning it.

As in those tense moments they tried to talk of other things, they were keyed high in the consciousness of not talking of the real thing.  And in that there was suggestion of the other thing of which they were not talking.  It was all inexplicably related:  the excitement, the tenseness, the waiting, the dissembling.

Katie had never been more lovely than as she sat there with her hand on the telephone:  flushed, stirred, expectant—­something stealing back to her eyes, something both pleading and triumphant in Katie’s eyes just then.

The man sitting close beside her at the telephone desk scarcely took his eyes from her face.

When the bell rang again and her hand shook as it took down the receiver he lay a steadying hand upon her arm.

At first there was nothing more than a controversy as to who had the line.  In her impatience, she rose; he rose, too, standing beside her.

“Here’s your party,” said central at last.

Her “party” was Wayne.

But something was still the matter on the line; she could not get what
Wayne was trying to tell her.

As her excitement became more difficult to control the man at her side kept speaking to her—­touching her—­soothingly.

At last she could hear Wayne.  “You hear me, Katie?”

“Oh yes—­yes—­what is it?”

“I want to tell you—­”

It was swallowed up in a buzzing on the line.

Then central’s voice came clear and crisp.  “Your party is trying to tell you that Ann is found.”

“Oh—­” gasped Katie, and lost all color—­“Oh—­”

“Katie—?” That was Wayne again.

“Oh yes, Wayne?”

“I have found her.  She is well—­that is, will be well.  She is all right—­going to be all right.  I’ll write it all to-morrow.  It’s all over, Katie.  You don’t have to worry any more.”

The next instant the telephone was upside down on the table and Katie, sobbing, was in his arms.  He was holding her close; and as her sobs grew more violent he kissed her hair, murmured loving things.  Suddenly she raised her head—­lifting her face to his.  He kissed her; and all the splendor of those eons of life was Katie’s then.