"That is all, Mr. Drennen?" asked the clerk.
"That is all," answered Drennen. The clerk went out. Drennen turned toward the man at the desk whose stern set face had gone strangely white.
"The absconding John Harper Drennen made such a request of you?" Marshall Sothern said calmly, though the effort for control was evident.
"No. It's just a little lie told for my father . . . the only thing I have ever done for him!"
Drennen came suddenly about the table, both of his strong hands out.
"When a man is very young he judges sweepingly, he condemns bitterly. Now . . . why, now I don't give a damn what you've done or why!" His voice went hoarse, his hands shook and into the hard eyes of David Drennen, eyes grown unbelievably soft now, the tears stood. "If only you hadn't shut me out that way . . . God! I've missed you, Dad!"
The old man made no answer as his hand grew like rock about his son's. A smile ineffably sweet touched his lips and shone in his eyes. The years had been hard, merciless years to him as they had been to David Drennen. But for a moment the past was forgotten, this brief fragment of time standing supreme in the two lives. At last, in the silence, there fell upon them that little awkwardness which comes to such men when for a second they have let their souls stand naked in their eyes. Almost at the same instant each man sought his pipe, filling it with restless fingers.
"My boy," said the man whose name had been Marshall Sothern through so many weary years that it was now more his name than any other, "there is the tale to tell . . . sometime. I can't do it now. One of these days . . . this has been the only dream I've dreamed since I saw you last, in Manhattan, David . . . you and I are going to pack off into the mountains. We're going alone, David, and we're going far; so far that the smoke of our little camp fire will be for our eyes and nostrils alone. Then I can tell you my story. And . . . David . . ."
"That forty thousand . . . You are a gentleman, David! That was like you. I . . . I thank you, my boy!"
Drennen's face, through a rush of emotions, reddened. Reddened for an unreasoning, inexplicable shame no less than for a proud sort of joy that at last he had been able to do some small thing for John Harper Drennen, his old hero.