He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open the door—he had forgotten it was there.
He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to him. The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and dainty way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he realized that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest and hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long.
With characteristic directness he began:
“Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the queen-mother?”
She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little side porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away from them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green.
“She is a dear girl, isn't she?” said her mother softly.
A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. If only he might keep them happy and contented and—and his! He never thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially together than they.
“She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming neighborliness,” he answered gravely. “How long have we lived 'across the street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?”
She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles.
“It is just a year this month,” she said.