Out by the big stone pillars of the portico, he looked toward the south
turret and saw Dr. Fenneben as Vic had seen Elinor on the evening of
the May storm. He did not call, but with a twist of the fingers as of
unlocking a door, he dodged back into the building and up to the chapel
end of the turret stairs to release the Dean.
Dr. Fenneben had started down to the study by the same old “road to
perdition” stairs and paused at the window as Dennie and Burgess were
passing out, unconscious of three pairs of eyes on them. Then the Dean
saw down through the half-open study door the two young people by the
window, and he knew he was not needed there. What that look in his black
eyes meant, as he turned to the half-way window of the turret, it would
have been hard to read. And the picture of a fair-faced girl came back
to his own hungry memory. He was trying to calculate the distance from
the turret window to the ground when Trench wig-wagged a rescue signal.
“You are a brick, Trench,” he said, as the upper stairway door swung
open to release him.
“You've the whole chimney,” Trench responded, as he swung himself away.
Dr. Fenneben met Elinor in the rotunda.
“Wait a minute, Norrie, and I'll walk home with you.”
In the study he met Burleigh, whose stern face was tender with a
pathetic sadness, but there was no embarrassment in his glance. And
Fenneben, being a man himself, knew what power for sacrifice lay back of
those beautiful eyes.
“I can't give him the message I meant to give now. The man said there
was no hurry. A veritable tramp he looked to be. I hope there is no harm
to the boy in it. Why should a girl like Norrie love the pocketbook, and
the things of the pocketbook, when a heart like Victor Burleigh's calls
to her? I know men. I never shall know women.” So he thought. Aloud he
said: “I was detained, Burleigh, and I'll have to see you again. I have
some matters to consider with you soon.”
And Burleigh wondered much what “some matters” might be.
When Professor Burgess left Dennie he said, lightly:
“Miss Dennie, I need a little help in my work. Would you let me call
this evening and talk it over with you? I don't believe anybody else
would get hold of it quite so well.”
Dennie had supposed this first evening after Elinor's return would
find her lover making use of it. Why should Dennie not feel a thrill of
pleasure that her services out-weighed everything else? Poor Dennie! She
was no flirt, but much association with Vincent Burgess had given her
insight to know that Norrie Wream would never understand him.
When Burgess returned to the Saxon House later in the evening, he met
Bond Saxon at the door.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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