"What are you laughing at?" he asked.
"What do you suppose he was doing?" Mrs. Neligage demanded. "Now you have my hand, what are you going to do with it?"
He dropped her hand in confusion.
"I—I just took it because you gave it to me," he stammered. "I was only going—I was going to—"
"Then why in the world didn't you?" she laughed, moving quickly away toward the window which opened upon the piazza.
"But I will now," he exclaimed, striding after.
"Oh, now it is too late," she declared teasingly. "A woman is like time. She must be taken by the forelock."
"But, Mrs. Neligage, Louisa, I was afraid of offending you!"
"Nothing offends a woman so much as to be afraid of offending her," was her oracular reply, as she flitted over the sill.
All the way into town that sunny April afternoon Harry Bradish was unusually silent. While Mrs. Neligage, in the highest spirits, rattled on with jest, or chat, or story, he replied in monosyllables or in the briefest phrases compatible with politeness. He was evidently thinking deeply. The very droop of his yellow mustaches showed that. The presence of the trig little groom at the back of the trap was a sufficient reason why Bradish should not then deliver up any confidential disclosures in regard to the nature of his cogitations, but from time to time he glanced at the widow with the air of having her constantly in his thoughts.