Chapter 25: Enigmas

Not until Burke Denby became convinced that Miss Elizabeth Darling was not his daughter did he realize how deeply the thought that she might be had taken hold of his very life—how closely entwined in his affections she had become. From the first minute the electrifying idea of her possible relationship had come to him, he had (in spite of his determination to the contrary) reveled in pictures of what his home would be with a daughter like that to love—and to love him. Helen, too, was in the pictures—true, a vague, shadowy Helen, yet a Helen idealized and glorified by the remorseful repentance born of a bunch of worn little diaries. Then to have the beautiful vision shattered by one word from the girl’s own lips—and just when he had attained the pinnacle of joyous conviction that she was, indeed, his little girl of the long ago—it seemed as though he could not bear it.

And, most anguishing of all, there was no chance that there was a mistake. Even if the incongruity of her description of her father as applied to himself could be explained away, there was yet the insurmountable left. With his own ears he had heard her say that her father was dead—had been dead for many years. That settled it, of course. There could be no mistake about—death.

After the first stunning force of the disappointment, there came to Burke Denby the reaction—in the case of Burke Denby a characteristic reaction. It became evident, to some extent, the very next day. For the first time in weeks he did not work with his secretary over the cataloguing at all during the day. He dictated his letters, then left at once for his office at the Works. At luncheon he relapsed into his old stern silence; and in the afternoon, beyond giving a few crisp directions, he showed no interest in Betty’s work, absenting himself most of the time from the room.

Yet not in the least was all this consciously planned on his part. He felt simply an aversion to being with this girl. Even the sight of her bright head bent over her work gave him a pang, the sound of her voice brought bitterness. Above all, he dreaded a glance from her eyes—Helen’s eyes, that had lured him for a brief twenty-four hours into a fool’s paradise of thinking they might, indeed, be—Helen’s eyes.

Burke was grievously disappointed, ashamed, and angry; and being accustomed always to acting exactly as he felt, he acted now—as he felt. He was grievously disappointed that his brief dream of a daughter in his home should have come to naught. He was ashamed that he should have allowed himself to be deluded into such a dream, and angry that the thing had so stirred him—that he could be so stirred by the failure of so absurd and preposterous a supposition to materialize into fact.

As the days passed, matters became worse rather than better. Added to his disappointment and chagrin there came to be an unreasoning wrath that this girl was not his daughter, together with a rebellion at his lonely life, and an overmastering self-pity that he should be so abused of Fate. It was then that he began systematically to avoid, so far as was possible, being with the girl at all, save for the necessary dictation and instructions. This was the more easily accomplished, as the cataloguing now had almost arrived at the stage where it was a mere matter of copying and tabulating the mass of material already carefully numbered to correspond with the equally carefully numbered curios in the cabinets.