“But he didn’t write it,” said West, unhesitatingly.  “I wrote it myself.”

“You?”

She looked at him with frank surprise in her eyes; not too much frank surprise; rather as one who feels much but endeavors to suppress it for courtesy’s sake.  “Forgive me—­I didn’t know.  There has been a little horrid gossip but of course nearly every one has thought that he—­”

“I’m sure I’m not responsible for what people think,” said West, a little aggressively, but with a strangely sinking heart.  “There has been not the slightest mystery or attempt at concealment—­”

“Oh!  Then of course Charlotte knows all about it now?”

“I don’t know whether she does or not.  When I tried to tell her the whole story,” explained West, “soon after the incident occurred, she was so agitated about it, the subject seemed so painful to her, that I was forced to give it up.  You can understand my position.  Ever since, I have been waiting for an opportunity to take her quietly and straighten out the whole matter for her in a calm and rational way.  For her part she has evidently regarded the subject as happily closed.  Why under heaven should I press it upon her—­merely to gain the academic satisfaction of convincing her that the Post acted on information superior and judgment sounder than her own?”

Miss Avery, now devoting herself to her chauffeur’s duties through a moment of silence, was no match for Mr. West at the game of ethical debate, and knew it.  However, she held a very strong card in her pongee sleeve, and she knew that too.

“I see—­of course.  You know I think you have been quite right through it all.  And yet—­you won’t mind?—­I can’t help feeling sorry for Mr. Surface.”

“Very well—­you most mysterious lady.  Go on and tell me why you can’t help feeling sorry for Mr. Surface.”

Miss Avery told him.  How she knew anything about the private affairs of Mr. Surface and Miss Weyland, of which it is certain that neither of them had ever spoken, is a mystery, indeed:  but Gossip is Argus and has a thousand ears to boot.  Miss Avery was careful to depict Sharlee’s attitude toward the unfortunate Mr. Surface as just severe enough to suggest to West that he must act at once, and not so severe as to suggest to him—­conceivably—­the desirability, from a selfish point of view, of not acting at all.  It was a task for a diplomat, which is to say a task for a Miss Avery.

“Rather fine of him, wasn’t it, to assume all the blame?—­particularly if it’s true, as people say,” concluded Miss Avery, “that the man’s in love with her and she cares nothing for him.”

“Fine—­splendid—­but entirely unnecessary,” said West.

The little story had disturbed him greatly.  He had had no knowledge of any developments between Sharlee and his former assistant; and now he was unhappily conscious that he ought to have spoken weeks ago.

“I’m awfully sorry to hear this,” he resumed, “for I am much attached to that boy.  Still—­if, as you say, everything is all right now—­”