The old man gave her a keen glance and pursed his lips as he wrote the check.
“He’ll never take it,” she repeated, taking up her pitcher again.
“Well, I’m not anxious to give him you instead!” said the judge.
Rose laughed a little in spite of herself. “You need not!” she replied.
Her father signed the check. “Rose,” he said, in an absent voice, “what did Gerty English say about Margaret’s divorce?”
Rose bent assiduously to her task. “Not much,” she answered quietly; “just that it was settled, she meant to get one; she’s very unhappy.”
“Of course she means to marry again, that’s what they do these days,” the judge said, in a tone of fine irony; “one husband isn’t enough or one wife. Solomon ought to get here! Of course she’ll marry Fox.”
Rose was silent; through the open window she could see the buds on the Persian lilac, but she shivered.
“What I should like to know,” said the judge shrewdly, “is this—does Fox want to marry her?”
Rose put her hand to her throat with a helplessly futile gesture. “They say he was in love with her long ago, father.”