Miss Ponsonby gave him a shy little smile, but at the end of the fleeting movement, her eyes again sought the Judge’s with the same questioning intensity, so that he was amazed to find himself answering aloud.
“Obviously appropriate,” he repeated, “and for a hundred reasons: first, my dear young lady, so charming a person as yourself has no business rusting out in the fatigues of your profession; second, because this young free-lance needs somebody to look after him; third, because marriage is to be encouraged on general principles.” At this point he seemed to recognize the necessity of steering the conversational bark into safer waters, and endeavored to divert it by pleasantry at his own expense. “Although I have not been able to induce any young woman to share my joys and sorrows, believe me, it is not because I am opposed to the institution. If I am an old bachelor, it is not for lack of trying to marry.”
It was Collingwood who made the humanely frank rejoinder, “I guess you haven’t tried very hard since you have been on the bench, have you, Judge?”
It is strange how a man may both resent a fact and take pride in it. Six weeks before, when the Judge had wished to put a squabbling young woman in her place, he had rather gloried in the material advantages connected with his position. A hint that his position might win him a wife when his personality unaided could not do so, rasped his nerves. Charlotte saw him wince and returned good for evil.
“Ah! you are not sincere. You are too modern to believe in marriage.”
“Is it in an ironical spirit, then, do you think, that I beg an invitation to yours?”
“But it will be so very quiet—not even cards or cake; and only one or two of Mr. Collingwood’s friends, and one or two of mine, to give us countenance.”
“To keep us from feeling that we are eloping,” said Collingwood blithely.
“Am I not the very man to do that? If there is no other way, I must be railroaded in in an official capacity. Does not Collingwood need a best man? Does not the marriage ceremony call for a parent to give the bride away—’Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’—and all that?”
This was pure advertising propaganda, a way to one of those newspaper squibs which delight both the snobbishness and the sentimentality of Americans. In the slight pause which ensued, the Judge had a momentary sensation of being weighed in a very delicately balanced mind, and of being found wanting. But Charlotte only said, “You may come if you wish. But it is sooner than you anticipate—very soon.”