I had just parted from Mrs. Roysell when I saw Madge Emmerton pass under the portcullis. I knew her despite the veil and the shadow of her broad hat. With one hand she held the loose of her white piqué. In the other she was managing a purse and some small packages that suggested the bazars down the street.
When we each had said how surprised we were, and had taken chairs in the shade, she looked at me suddenly and said, “I don’t believe you know.”
“Know what?” I bluntly returned, looking into her radiant face.
“Of course you don’t. You never could do it so well. And you would have had the grace to ask after him.”
“Well,” I said, “I haven’t had time to ask after anybody yet. Please explain, so that I can ask intelligently. Are you married or anything of that sort?”
She nodded frankly.
It all came back to me then. Two of the handsomest young men in Philadelphia were in a state of intense willingness when I last saw her. But she was not one of whom it ever was possible to guess whom or when she would marry. And I never had heard a word of the engagement. There was a great disparity in the financial resources of the two men, and, as it had seemed from informed comment, some disparity also in their intellectual resources. It is only fair to Providence to say that it had generously given the great talents to the man without money.
“Which one did you marry?” I asked. “The poor one or the rich one?”
“The rich one,” she replied with an entirely unembarrassed laugh.