An explanation came to his mind, light in the darkness. It was just another masquerade—Darcy apparently specialized in them—and Veyze had been but a blind for Harmon, the real lover in the background, all the time. He felt Harmon wringing his hand in welcome and heard himself saying with a creditable affect of heartiness:
“Then I suppose it’s you that I’m to congratulate.”
“It is,” returned the other, chuckling joyously. “Though how on earth you knew it I can’t conceive.”
He marched over to Darcy. She saw him changed, thinned, with lines in his smooth face; lines of thoughtfulness, of self-control, of achieved manhood, and her heart was in her eyes as they met his and drooped.
“And you,” he said. “I wish you every happiness. I couldn’t wish you better than Tom Harmon.”
“_What!_” cried that complimented but astounded gentleman. “Me? Miss Darcy?”
“Well, if it isn’t you,” said Jack lifelessly, looking from one to the other: “will you kindly tell—”
“It _is_ me, but it isn’t her,” broke in Harmon, with the superb disregard of grammar suitable to the occasion. “Man alive, it’s _Gloria!_”
As if in confirmation, Gloria’s voice came to them, down the hallway.
Two chairs which foolishly attempted to impede Mr. Thomas Harmon’s abrupt and athletic progress across the floor were sent to the janitor next day.
“Tom!” cried Gloria’s voice in a breathless and different tone. Then the door slammed.
Jack Remsen turned to Darcy. “So that’s it, is it?” he said slowly.
“That,” answered Darcy, “is it. Isn’t it splendid!”
“Couldn’t be splendider—for those most concerned. What about the rest of it?”
“The rest of it?” Her brows were raised in dainty puzzlement, but her eyes refused to meet his.
“On his way back to the East, I understand,” said Darcy carefully.
“I—I don’t want to look you in the face. You’re not pretty when you make a—a catechism of yourself.”
“Darcy,” said Remsen, “there’s been something queer about this Veyze business from the start. As long as I could help I did, didn’t I?”
“But now I’ve got to know. I’ve got a right to know.”
“Why?” It was the merest whisper. “Because I’ve come back loving you more than when you left me. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But it’s so. Every hope and wish of my heart is bound up in you. Darcy, is it broken off between you and Montrose Veyze?”