They rode down to the ferry, and the taxicab rolled on board the broad, unsavory-smelling boat. When the craft started, the vibration of the engine sent a throbbing sense of departure through Adriance such as he never had felt in starting a European voyage. This time he could not return. He was humbly grateful for Elsie's silence, which permitted his own.
On the Jersey side their cab slowly moved through the dark ferry house, then plunged out into a sun-drenched world and swung blithely up to the long Edgewater hill. They left the river shipping behind, presently. The sunlight glittered through the woods that still clothe the long, rampart-like stretches along the summit of the great cliffs; a forest of jewels like the subterranean woods of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, only instead of silver and diamonds these trees displayed the red of cornelian and brown of topaz all set in copper and bronze. The storm of the night before had littered the ground with the spoils of Lady Autumn's jewel-box; the air was spicily sweet and very clear.
The village on the first slope of the hills had been dingy and poor. Here above, on the heights winding up the river, there were few houses, with long spaces between. Elsie leaned at the window, her wide eyes embracing all. Adriance leaned back, seeing nothing.
The taxicab finally stopped, nevertheless, at his signal, before a little red cottage set far back from the road.
"Here?" the chauffeur queried, with incredulous scorn.
"Here," Adriance affirmed, swinging out their two suit-cases and his wife. He laughed a little at the man's face. "How much?"
The toll pointed Elsie's warning. She made a grimace at her pupil. His spirits mounting again, Adriance answered the rebuke by catching her hand to lead her up the absurd, staggering Gothic porch in miniature.
"I'll come back for the baggage," he promised. "Come look, first."
"Is there anything inside?"
"Oh, yes. I——" he looked askance at her. "I bought things, at a shop in Fort Lee, early this morning. I suppose they're all wrong."