“But, sir, this—this lady?”
“There is more than one way to cure a woman of a heart’s distemper,” said the young man, cheerfully. “Lady Margaret was just there, behind the curtain. But this is wasting time. What is your news?”
Phipps looked at him in wonder, for a moment, then shaking his head, sadly, he presently drew his hand down across his face, to his double chin, as if to wipe out a smile, which had come out of his eyes and traveled all over his countenance.
“Adam,” he said, “they have made me Governor of the colony, and I want you to go home with me to Boston.”
Adam said nothing, for a moment, then he answered: “Let’s get out of this. I want some fresher air to think it over in.”
They were soon walking out at the gate, arm in arm. The air was not only fresh, it was bitter cold. When they turned to go down the street, Adam having first looked about, without seeing what he sought, old Halberd issued from a niche, where he had been dancing to keep himself warm, and followed along behind his master.
“Well, now that you have thought it over,” said Phipps, at last, “what do you say?”
Adam had thought it over, from a thousand standpoints. The magnet at Boston had drawn him and drawn him so long that he felt his whole soul was already across the Atlantic. Why fight his longing any further? Why not at least go home, look the proposition in the face and perhaps be disillusionized?
“I’m your man,” he said, as if to catch himself before he should alter his mind. “When are you sailing?”