what you were going to say, isn't it?"

"Yes, I started to say that," she answered, "and then I thought better
of it."

She spoke calmly; but she was oddly disquieted by his fixed gaze, and
angry with herself for feeling it.

"I will tell you," said he, "how I happen to be acting in both
capacities."

The marks of his internal struggle broke through upon his face. For the
first time, it occurred to Sharlee, as she looked at the new markings
about his straight-cut mouth, that this old young man whom she had
commonly seen so matter-of-fact and self-contained, might be a person of
stronger emotions than her own. After all, what did she really know
about him?

As if to answer her, his controlled voice spoke.

"Mr. Surface is my father. I am his son."

She smothered a little cry. "_Your father_!"

"My name," he said, with a face of stone, "is Henry G. Surface, Jr."

"Your father!" she echoed lifelessly.

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.
His eyes rested upon her piled-up mass of crinkly brown hair; upon the
dark curtain of lashes lying on her cheek; upon the firm line of the
cheek, which swept so smoothly into the white neck; upon the rounded
bosom, now rising and falling so fast; upon the whole pretty little
person which could so stir him now to undreamed depths of his being....
No altruism here, Fifi; no self-denial to want to make _her_ happy.

He began speaking quietly.

"I can't tell you now how I found out all this. It is a long story; you
will hear it all some day. But the facts are all clear. I have been to
New York and seen Tim Queed. It is--strange, is it not? Do you remember
that afternoon in my office, when I showed you the letters from him? We
little thought--"

"Oh me!" said Sharlee. "Oh me!"

She rose hastily and walked away from him, unable to bear the look on
his face. For a pretense of doing something, she went to the fire and
poked aimlessly at the glowing coals.

As on the afternoon of which he spoke, waves of pity for the little
Doctor's worse than fatherlessness swept through her; only these waves
were a thousand times bigger and stormier than those. How hardly he
himself had taken his sonship she read in the strange sadness of his
face. She dare