The judge broke out.
“What a fool I am! Sit down and let me order something. We’ve dined, but you mustn’t leave my house hungry!”
Overton laughed.
“No, I must be off. But it’s understood—we’ll let this matter remain hushed up?”
The judge thought, standing on the hearth-rug, his feet wide apart and his head down, the big pipe thrust into his mouth. After a while he took it out and answered.
“I’d like to expose him. I meant to do it, to set Diane right; but there might be reasons why silence would be best. I know she wants it. She shrinks with horror from the whole thing, poor child!”
His tone had in it a note of tenderness that was new to Overton. He looked up and again met the older man’s dark eyes resting searchingly upon him. It affected him strongly. There was a subtle suggestion of hope in it, a reassurance.
He turned hastily, and made his way out with an abruptness that surprised his host. He had a craving for air and space; the sudden change, the revival of hope after his despair, seemed to take his breath away. He forgot his appetite for his delayed meal, and set out for a long walk in the weird light of the half-clouded moon.
Having closed the door on his visitor, Judge Herford stood for a moment with his hand on the knob, listening to the young man’s footsteps until they finally reached the open road. He had received a new and, to him, amazing impression, and it staggered him so much that for the time being he forgot his wrath against his son-in-law. It was a new impression, but it furnished the key to situations that had previously seemed vague and perplexing. Now he understood them all, and in this new light he thought he understood his daughter.
While he stood there, before he could clear up the ponderous machinery of his judicial mind and set it in motion, he heard the swish of skirts on the staircase and became aware of her presence.