His friends, too, had sustained his judgment; all but Dr. Gerry. He was aware that Gerry challenged it; but he remembered, with a reminiscent smile, that Gerry had always been a “crank.” It was not to be supposed that any one so eminently human and young as Faunce could please the crusty old doctor.
“He’s too healthy,” the judge had declared, laughing.
“Oh, is he?” the doctor flung back, and muttered his objections. “Let him go, Hadley! He isn’t fit to tie Diane’s shoe. Send her to a convent!”
There had been more, in the doctor’s most pessimistic vein; but, when challenged for a real objection, he refused to state his views. The matter had dropped at last, and only Diane noticed that the old man sent no wedding-gift. The judge had brushed Gerry’s opposition aside as he now brushed aside his own tenderness.
He sat back comfortably in his chair, filling the big bowl of his favorite pipe. He was just lighting it when he heard a rustle in the hall, and Diane stood on the threshold, a slight figure in a floating gown of flowered silk, her long hair unbound and shadowing her face.
The judge looked around at her, a smile in his judicial eyes.
“It’s twelve o’clock, Di. You’ll certainly see the dawn of your wedding-day, at this rate!”
“I couldn’t sleep, papa, so I came to sit with you a while.”
He made room for her to bring a low seat to the fire by his side. With a new paternal aspect, he laid his arm gently around her shoulders.
“I was just thinking of you, Di, and of Arthur. I wish I’d had my way and put him into politics.”