All the anguish was for the afterwards. Love, who is a god, was too near to his kingdom to admit of any rival.
"Hector," she whispered, and as she said his name a wild thrill ran through him again. "Hector—the Austrian Prince at Armenonville said life was a current down which our barks floated, only to be broken up on the rocks if it was our fate; and I said if we tried very hard some angel would steer us past them into smooth waters beyond; and I want you to help me to find the angel, dear—will you?"
But all he could say was that she was the angel, the only angel in heaven or earth.
And so they came at last to the Bason de Neptune, and on through the side door into the Réservoirs—and there was the widow's automobile that moment arrived.
XII
Every one behaved with immense propriety—they said just what they should have said, there was no gêne at all. And when they went up the stairs together to arrange their hair and their hats for dinner, the elder woman slipped her arm through Theodora's.
"I am going to marry your father, my dear," she said, "and I want you to be the first to wish me joy."
The dinner went off with great gayety. The widow especially was full of bright sayings, and Captain Fitzgerald made the most devoted lover. Not too elated by his good-fortune, and yet thoroughly happy and tender. He continually told himself that fate had been uncommonly kind to mix business and pleasure so dexterously, for if the widow had not possessed a cent, he still would have been glad to marry her.