"Do you wish me to go? For the sake of peace?" he asked Grace, anxiously.
There was nothing he would not do, no torture too great to endure, for her sake—not even the exquisite agony of absence. That there might be no misunderstanding, he added, softly, "Do you?"
"Don't you talk to my daughter!" said Mrs. Goodchild, furious at being excluded from the supreme command. Hearing no assent, she was compelled by the law of nature to repeat herself: "Don't you talk to my daughter!"
H. R. looked at her in grieved perplexity. "Do you mean that you are deliberately going to be a comic-weekly mother-in-law and make me the laughing-stock of my set?"
Feeling the inadequacy of mere words to express the thought she had not tried to express, Mrs. Goodchild called on her right hand for aid; she pointed. Being concerned with gesture rather than intent on direction, she, alas! pointed to a window.
He shook his head at her and then at the window, and told her: "To jump out of that one would be as bad as having me arrested. Do you want the infernal reporters to make you ridiculous? Do you realize that I am the most-talked-about man in all New York? Don't you know what newspaper ridicule is? Don't you? Say no!"
To make sure of her own grasp of the situation Mrs. Goodchild, who was dying to shriek at the top of her voice, compressed her lips. H. R. instantly perceived the state of affairs and double-turned the key by fiendishly placing his right forefinger to his own lips. This would give to his mother-in-law the two excellent habits of obedience and silence.
He turned to the girl and said: "Grace, don't hide behind your mother. Let me look my fill. It's got to last me a whole week!"
Grace saw in his face and knew from his voice that he was neither acting nor raving. His words were as the gospel, the oldest of all gospels, which, unlike all others, is particularly persuasive in the springtime. He was a fine-looking chap, and the newspapers were full of him, and he was in love with her. He interested her. But of course he was impossible. But also she was New York, and, to prove it, she must be epigrammatic. All her life she had listened to high-class vaudeville. She said, icily, yet with a subtle consciousness of her own humor, "If you wish to worship, why don't you try a church?"
"Which?" he retorted so promptly and meaningly that she almost felt the wedding-ring on her finger. He pursued: "And when? I have the license all ready. See?"