"Yes, I think it probable," Joe smiled sorrowfully.
"About YOU, I mean." He had time to fear that her look admitted confusion before she proceeded: "He said he had never seen anything so fine as your coming down those steps. Ah, he was right! But it was harder for me to watch you, I think, than for you to do it, Joe. I was so horribly afraid—and the crowd between us—if we could have got near you—but we couldn't—we—"
She faltered, and pressed her hand close upon her eyes.
"We?" asked Joe, slowly. "You mean you and Mr. Ladew?"
"Yes, he was there; but I mean"—her voice ran into a little laugh with a beatific quaver in it—"I mean Colonel Flitcroft and Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Buckalew, too—we were hemmed in together when Mr. Ladew found us—and, oh, Joe, when that cowardly rush started toward you, those three—I've heard wonderful things in Paris and Naples, cabmen quarrelling and disappointed beggars—but never anything like them to-day—"
"You mean they were profane?"
"Oh, magnificently—and with such inventiveness! All three begged my pardon afterwards. I didn't grant it—I blessed them!"
"Did they beg Mr. Ladew's pardon?"
"Ah, Joe!" she reproached him. "He isn't a prig. And he's had to fight some things that you of all men ought to understand. He's only been here a few months, but he told me that Judge Pike has been against him from the start. It seems that Mr. Ladew is too liberal in his views. And he told me that if it were not for Judge Pike's losing influence in the church on account of the Beaver Beach story, the Judge would probably have been able to force him to resign; but now he will stay."
"He wishes to stay, doesn't he?"