“This is an uncovenanted mercy!” he says, with a rather strained smile. “I was afraid that I had seen the last of you.”
“I heard from my people, that they cannot get back to-day.”
“Yes.”
There is a lifelessness in the little dialogue, she expressing no regret, and he no gladness. When the eyes, dropped upon her work—she had no work yesterday—give him an opportunity of covert observation, he sees that her large eyelids look thickened as if with tears or watching.
“The law is a very odd thing, isn’t it?” she says presently in a staccato key.
“I have never had many dealings with it.”
“It is the only vehicle to which civilization has not given C-springs and indiarubber tires. It still jolts and lumbers along as it did three hundred years ago.”
His look asks for an explanation of her forced yet commonplace analogy, and she goes on.
“In the matter of marriage settlements for instance, both sides may be perfectly at one as to the disposition of the money; and yet the law insists on finding flaws and making difficulties.”