Just as proceedings were about to open, Sophy noticed Emerald's little many-buttoned boots and red stockings protruding from behind the stove. She looked at Dainton and the blood swept over her face.
"Excuse me for interrupting ... but your little girl is still in the room, Mr. Dainton," she said.
The lawyer jumped up and drew a protesting Emerald from her horsehair coign of vantage.
"Please, pa ... lemme stay!" she whined. "I might have to get divorced some time. I want to see how you fix it up. Please, pa!"
Mr. Dainton whispered fiercely that he'd "smack her if she didn't shut up that minute." Father and daughter disappeared into another room. Then the father reappeared alone, and the case of Loring v. Loring proceeded....
When it was all over and Mr. Wogram had taken his leave with jerky bows to friend and foe alike, Mr. Dainton turned to Sophy, with a curious reminiscence of the facetious manner in which one addresses brides, and said:
"Allow me to congratulate you ... Mrs. Chesney!"
Judge Boiler did likewise.
Sophy had one dreadful moment of fear, regret, grief, distaste—the awful vertigo of the irrevocable. She tried to smile conventionally. Sue slipped an arm through hers, held her close without seeming to do so, and talked for her—nice, easy, well-sounding commonplaces. While she was thus talking, Mr. Dainton stalked to the inner door and, flinging it open, called jocosely:
"Come along in, Maldy. The knot's untied...."