“Then let him come,” decided Tom. “If he’s got that bee out of his bonnet, I don’t want to quarrel with him. I never doubted his sense, save in that fatal matter.”
“He’s got a nice hand with the children, too,” said Mary. “I will say that for him; and where a child of mine takes, you may generally trust the party.”
In the matter of Medora, there was no difficulty; nor did Jordan make any. Medora, in fact, felt a shadow of disappointment that he agreed so willingly. It was only a lesser grievance than refusal had been.
She made a great business of her petition, but he made no business whatever of granting it.
“You’ve got the lecture through now,” he said, “and there won’t be no need for another copy yet, if at all, and you’ve heard me deliver it so often that I’ll be glad for you to go and get a rest. Then you’ll come back all the fresher to it, and to the actual night, when I give it at Totnes a fortnight hence. Go, by all means, and I’ll come over to tea on Sunday.”
So Medora, who would have wearied Heaven with her griefs, had he questioned the plan, now flushed that he approved it.
“One would think you was glad to get rid of me,” she said.
“Who’d think so?” he asked. “It’s a good idea, and will give you a bit of a rest.”
“And you, too, perhaps?”
“I don’t want a rest; but life’s been getting on your nerves above a bit lately, and the calm of the farm and the fun of the children, and being with your mother, and so on—it’s to the good, Medora. And soon, I hope, we’ll know something definite, so that this suspense can end. It’s bad for you, and I should think the man was enough of a man to know he’s doing a mean and cowardly thing to hang it up like this any longer. So you go, and rest quietly; and as I told you, if he doesn’t proceed soon, I shall approach him again with an ultimatum.”