“I stopped to ask Patty about a dance,” she explained.  “I must go on immediately.”

He glanced at the girl a little anxiously.  “Is she going to a party with you?  I am glad.”

In spite of his buoyant manner, there was an abstracted look in his eyes, as if his mind were working at a distance while he talked.  After the first minute or two Patty observed this and it helped her to make her decision.  “Are you busy, Father?” she asked.  “I promised Mr. Gershom that I would give you a message—­such a silly message it is too.”

“Gershom?” He repeated, and his face darkened.  “What did he say to you?  No, don’t go, Mrs. Page.  Come into the library, and let us have the message.”

Corinna glanced uncertainly over her shoulder.  “I really must be going,” she murmured, and then yielding suddenly either to inclination or to the pressure of Patty’s hand, she crossed the threshold of the library and walked over to the front window.  Outside, beyond the yard and the grotesque fountain, she saw the splendid outline of Washington, and beyond this the faint afternoon haze above the spires and chimneys of the city.  “The sun will go down soon.  I must hurry,” she thought; yet she stood there, without moving, looking out on the monument and the sky.  For a moment she gazed in silence; then turning quickly, she glanced with smiling eyes about the small, stiffly furnished room, with the leather chairs and couch and the business looking writing-table in the centre of the floor.

“How comfortable you look here,” she observed lightly, “and how business-like.”

“Yes, I work here a good deal in the evenings.”  He turned a chair toward the window, and when she sat down, he remained for a minute still standing, with his hand on the back of the chair, smiling thoughtfully not at her, but at the disarray on his desk.  The glow of pleasure which the sight of her had brought was still in his face; and she thought that she had never seen him so nearly good-looking.  It occurred to her now, as it had done so often before, that in the hour of trouble he would be like a rock to lean on.  However else he might fail, she surmised that in human relations he would be for ever dependable.  And what was life, after all, except a complex and intricate blend of human relations?  She decided suddenly and positively that she had always liked Gideon Vetch.  She liked the way his broad bulging forehead swept back into his sandy hair, which was quite gray on the temples; she liked the contrast between the quizzical humour in his eyes and the earnest expression of his generous mouth with its deep corners.  He stood in her mind for the straight and simple things of life, and she had lost her way so often among the bewildering ramification of human motives.  He had no trivial words, she knew.  He was incapable of “making conversation”; and she, who had been bred in a community of ceaseless chatter, was mentally refreshed by the sincerity of his interest.  It was as restful, she said to herself now, as a visit to the country.