"Of course it has occurred to me," answered Hale, "and if I thought it was true I'd kidnap her."
"Well, of course, you can't do that," said the lawyer; but his tone seemed to admit it wouldn't be a bad thing to do.
He was surprised after his visitor had left to find how sincerely he hoped that Hale would succeed in marrying the little widow. He owned that he himself would not give up a million for any romance in the world; but then he was a middle-aged man who had lived his life, not a pretty young woman who had spent five years of her youth almost as an upper servant.
She ought, he thought, to be unafraid of the adventure of poverty; though he was obliged to confess that there was an element of adventure, too, in spending a large income; an adventure which would appeal more strongly to most people. Only, he thought, there wouldn't be much joy in riches if one remained forever under the iron rule of Antonia.
Soon after this, that first day of spring arrived which always comes to deceive New Yorkers sometime in March; that day when the air is warm and the sky a pale even blue, and the north side of the street is dry and clear and the south side still runs in slush and rivulets. Then almost everyone does something foolish—from wearing thin clothes and letting the furnace go out to mistakes of a more devastating sort.
Williams, who was prudent by nature, did nothing worse than, in returning from arguing a case in Jersey City, to take the ferry instead of the tube. As he stood watching the boat for which he was waiting bumping its way into its slip, his attention was attracted by two people seated on the upper deck, with their elbows hooked over the rail and their bent heads close together, evidently at that delightful stage of intimacy when it is possible to talk—or rather whisper—simultaneously without either one losing a single word of what the other is saying. They showed no disposition to get off, no realization even that the boat had reached the shore, though the process of winding up the dock and letting down the drawbridges and opening the gates is not a quiet one. They were simply going to and fro on the river, for when the deck hand came to collect their fare it was obviously a repeated performance.
Williams had recognized Hale first, but the next second he had seen that the diminutive figure in black could be no other than Doris Helen. He did not disturb them, but from the window of the upper cabin he watched them—rather wistfully. Now and then they seemed to be saying something of the most serious importance, and, looking at each other in the middle of a sentence, they would forget to complete it. At other times they were evidently extremely frivolous, speaking with a manner common to those a little drunk and those deeply in love, a manner as if only they themselves could appreciate how deliciously ridiculous they were.
Williams was not much surprised the very next day to be called on the telephone by Miss Southgate, who wished to see him at once. She said she would come to his office, where they could talk without interruption.
She came. Her handsome alabaster mask was never allowed to express emotion, but she undulated her vast shoulders more than usual. A young man by the name of Hale—a painter—was coming every day to the house, and that morning Doris had admitted that he wanted to marry her.
"And my brother hardly a month in his grave!" said Miss Southgate, with all the concentrated bitterness of Hamlet's first soliloquy.