"Oh," the girl's exclamation was one of quick understanding. She knew something of Boone's financial pinch, and how he felt it a point of honour to stretch as far as possible the fund his patron had left him. "You mean--" she broke off, and the young mountaineer spoke bluntly,
"I mean I haven't a dress suit, and short of stealing one--"
"I understand," she declared, and began talking animatedly of other things, but when she had rung off Boone sat staring at an open law book and making nothing of its text. Then he heard a movement at his back and swung around in his swivel chair, but the next instant he was on his feet with an exclamation that was an outburst of joy.
There, standing just inside the door, tanned like saddle leather, somewhat grayer about the temples and sparer of figure than of old, but with the strong vigour of active months, stood Victor McCalloway.
"I think, my boy," he said, as though he had never been away at all, "we can run to a dress suit."
A moment later the two men stood with their hands clasped, and the face of the younger was aglow with such delight as can come only from a happy windfall out of the unexpected.
Never had that other face and figure been far from his thoughts. Never had his ardent hero-worship waned or tarnished. His speculations and dreams had been haunted by misgivings bred of the fierce chances of war, chances which might make of the features, into which he now looked again, only a memory.
New and varied activities in his life had bulwarked him against actual brooding, and youth is too brightly hopeful to accept grim possibilities, unproven; but the mists of denied fear had hung undissolved, and there had been moments when they had thickened and congealed on the crystal of his thoughts to dark foreboding.
He had not known with what name or rank his beloved preceptor had been serving over there beyond the Pacific. Many officers had fallen, and McCalloway was not one to turn half aside from any danger. If he had been among the lost, Boone might never have known. Even his torture of mind over Asa had been free of this intolerable character of suspense. Now it was lifted, and without a forerunner of hint the man stood there before him in the flesh, smiling and talking of a dress suit!