The Mayor applied a lighted spill to his cigar and then in silence offered it to the Corporal. But the Corporal’s cigar was not yet ready for smoking.
“If I do go”—the voice of the Corporal was soft and thick and rather husky—“you’ll ... you’ll....”
His father-in-law nodded. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll see her all right.”
Josiah took out his handkerchief and blew his nose violently.
XLIX
THAT evening, about nine o’clock, when Melia and the Corporal returned to Torrington Cottage, they found a cosy fire awaiting them in the charming sitting room, an act of grace on the part of Fanny, a handmaiden from the village, for the evenings were chilly. They sat a few minutes together and then Melia retired for the night after having drawn a promise from the Corporal that he would not be long in following her example.
Alas, the Corporal did not feel in the least like going to bed. There was a decision to be made. In fact he had half made it already. But the good wife upstairs and the very chair in which he sat had cast their spells upon him. Gazing into the heart of the fire he realized that he was deliciously and solidly comfortable. All his days he had been a catlike lover of the comfortable. In the first instance it had been that as much as anything that had so nearly undone him. Conflicting voices were urging him, as somehow they always did, at critical moments in his life.
This beautiful room with its old furniture, its china, its bric-a-brac, its soft carpet, its one rare landscape upon the wall was an enchanted palace. Even now, after all these months of occupation, it seemed like sacrilege to be sitting in it. But it was a symptom of a changed condition. This lovely place with its poetry and its elegance was a dream come true. And the honor and the affection with which a world formerly so hard and so supercilious surrounded him now made life so much sweeter than ever before.