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At one o'clock that night, while the Post's startling story was yet in process of the making, his son stood at the mantel in Surface's sitting-room, and looked over the wreck that his hands had made. That his father's treasures were hidden somewhere here he had hardly entertained a doubt. Yet he had pulled the place all to pieces without finding a trace of them.
By old Surface's plate stood a gold-topped bottle, containing, not the ruddy burgundy which had become customary of late, but sparkling champagne. Surface referred to it, gracefully, as his medicine; doctors, he said, were apparently under the delusion that schoolmasters had bottomless purses. To this pleasantry Queed made no reply.
"I meant to tell you all this some day," he said, in quite a natural voice. "Now the day has come a little sooner than I had meant that is all. I know that my confidence is safe with you till I die." "I think you have nothing to fear by trusting me," said Queed, and added at once: "But you need tell me nothing unless you prefer." A kind of softness shone for a moment in Surface's eyes.
And did not the very girl whose fortune had been stolen, the bereft herself, come now and then to sit among them, occupying that identical chair which Mr. Bylash could touch by merely putting out his hand? Henry G. Surface's story? Why, Mrs. Paynter's wrote it! These personal bearings were of course lost upon Mr. Queed, the name Weyland being utterly without significance to him.
Shocked and stunned, she turned her head hurriedly away; her elbow rested on the broad chair-arm, and her chin sank into her hand. Surface's son looked at her. It was many months since he had learned to look at her as at a woman, and that is knowledge that is not unlearned.
At the very beginning she was disquieted by the discovery that his gaze was steadier than her own. She was annoyingly conscious of looking away from him, as she said: "I think you have no right to ask that of me." Surface's son smiled sadly. "It is not about anything that you could possibly guess. I have made a discovery of a business nature, which concerns you vitally." "A discovery?" "Yes.
If for the next twelve months he ruthlessly eliminated everything from his life that did not bring in money, he could perhaps push his earnings for the next year to three thousand dollars, which would be enough to see him through.... And busy with thoughts like these, he came home to Surface's pleasant little house, and was greeted by the old man with kindness and good cheer.
Tim's story, in fact, was comprehensive at all points. He had been Mr. Surface's coachman and favorite servant in the heyday of the Southern apostate's metropolitan glories.
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