So, through the years, that desire had yearned. Justin felt it again now, deeper than hunger, more anguishing than thirst. And it was not lessened by the feeling that Philip Davison might not wish to satisfy it, and perhaps could not. For circumstances stood now like a wall between this father and son; circumstances which were not the choice of either, any more than were the intuitions and the motives, selfish or otherwise, which led them. They had traveled by different paths, and they stood apart. Nevertheless, the yearning was there, deep, pathetic, and it seemed that it would never be appeased. Justin forgot that white indignation that at first had burned with furnace heat against Philip Davison. Love took its place. Philip Davison was his father!
As this desire gained in strength Justin made an effort to see his father. He decided that he would put that little diary into his father's hands and be guided by the result. He surely could trust the better impulses of his own father! But he failed to find Davison. Fogg was absent, probably in attendance upon some all-night caucus, and Fogg was the only man likely to know where Davison could be found.
In the morning Justin discovered that Davison was temporarily absent, possibly out of town, but was expected at any moment. Fogg told him this, and observed that Justin showed a flushed, anxious face and had passed a sleepless night. Thereupon, remembering the promise of Sibyl Dudley, Fogg's courage rose. He dared not question Justin, and Justin was non-committal. This new knowledge Justin wished to share first of all with his father.
In his room a brief note was brought to him. Lucy Davison was in the ladies' parlor, and he went down to see her. She was seated by one of the windows that overlooked the noisy street. When she arose to meet him he saw that Sibyl had told her everything. There was sympathy and glad happiness, mingled with anxiety, in her manner. Her emotions tinted her cheeks and shadowed her brown eyes. Being a man, Justin did not note how she was dressed, except that it was very becomingly. Being a woman, she not only knew that she was entirely presentable herself, but saw every detail of his garb, from his well-polished shoes to the set of his collar. And she knew that he was clean and handsome. He had never questioned that she was the most beautiful woman, as to him she had been the most beautiful girl, in the world. Mary Jasper's rose-leaf complexion and midnight hair were juvenile and inane beside the glory of Lucy Davison's maturing womanhood.