His reverie ended abruptly. Miss Hardwick had gathered up her note-books and pencils; was rising now; and as she passed out, released in Hy's direction one look that almost frightened him. It was a barbed shaft of bitter malevolence, oddly confused with trembling, incredible triumph.
“Sit down, please!” It was Doctor Wilde's voice. Hy sat down in the chair that was always kept for him across the huge desk from the doctor. That gentleman had himself risen, creaked over to the door, was closing it securely.
What had that queer look meant? From Miss Hardwick of all people! To Hy she had been hardly more than an office fixture. But in that brief instant she had revealed depths of hatred, malignant jealousy--something!
The doctor sank heavily into his own chair. Hy, mystified, watched him and waited. The man reached for a paper-weight--a brass model of his first mission house from Africa or Madagascar or somewhere--and placed it before him on top of the unopened morning's mail, moved it this way, then a little that way and looked at it critically. Hy, more and more startled, a thought hypnotized, leaned forward on the desk and gazed at that little brass house. Finally the doctor spoke:
“I have an unpleasant duty--but it is not a matter that I can lightly pass over--”
Hy paled a little, knit his brows, stared with increasing intensity at that mission house of brass.
“For a long time, Mr. Lowe, I have felt that your conduct was not--”
“Oh,” thought Hy, in a daze, “my conduct was not--”
“--was not--well, in keeping with your position.”
“With my position.” Hy's numb mind repeated.
“This is not a matter of a particular act or a particular occasion, Mr. Lowe. For a long time it has been known to me that you sought undesirable companions, that you have been repeatedly seen in--in Broadway resorts.”
Hy's mind was stirring awake now, darting this way and that like a frightened mouse. Some one had been talking to the doctor--and very recently. The man was a coward in office matters; he had been goaded to this. The “for a long time,” so heavily repeated, was of course a verbal blind. Could it have been--not Miss Hardwick. Then Hy was surprised to hear his own voice:
“But this is a charge, Doctor Wilde! A charge should be definite.” The words came mechanically. Hy must have read them somewhere. “I surely have a right to know what has bcen said about me.”