And the third—the president—vouchsafed,—"What she needs is a strong hand to keep her straight."
All of which Adelle, like any self-respecting woman, might have resented.
XLVI
Adelle passed through the marble banking-room of the trust company, which once had been for her the acme of splendor, out upon the narrow city street in considerable puzzlement. She did not know which way to turn next, literally. She might consult some lawyer; that in fact was what the trust people had advised—that she should see their lawyers. But Adelle shrewdly concluded that it would be useless to see the Washington Trust Company's lawyers, who would doubtless tell her again in less intelligible language precisely what the trust officers had said. And she knew of no other lawyers in the city whom she might consult independently. Besides, she thought it better to see her cousin before going to the lawyers, feeling that this self-reliant, if socially inexperienced, young workman might have pertinent suggestions to offer. In the mean time, not having anything else to do immediately, she turned in the direction of her hotel.
Any of the preoccupied citizens of B—— who might have encountered this black-dressed, pale young woman sauntering up their crowded street this morning, could scarcely have divined what was going on behind those still, gray eyes. She was not thinking of the goods displayed in the shop windows, though her eyes mechanically flitted over them, nor was she musing upon a lover, though Tom Clark often crossed her mind, nor was she considering the weather, which was puritanically raw and ruffling, nor of any other thing than how she might divest herself of a large part of that fortune which the Washington Trust Company had so meritoriously preserved for her! There was a very simple way out of her dilemma, of course, but it had never occurred to her; and if it had occurred to the trust officers, they had thought best not to suggest it to their scatter-brained client. So she knitted her brows and thought, without heeding where she was.
When she came to a certain small square, she turned off the main street unconsciously and walked up a quiet block towards the court-house. It was the path she had trod eleven years before, only in the reverse direction when she had led her aunt from Judge Orcutt's courtroom to the home of the Washington Trust Company. Her mind took charge of her without calling upon her will, as it did so often, and presently she entered the great granite court-house with no clear purpose in her mind, other than a hidden desire, perhaps, to see the probate judge once more. Judge Orcutt was not in the room on the second floor which she remembered. Instead, there was a stranger holding court there, a dull-eyed, fat gentleman with drooping black mustache and a snappy voice, who did not attract Adelle. She thought she had made a mistake in the room and looked up and down the corridor for a room labeled with Judge Orcutt's name, but found none. Then she asked a court attendant, who told her that the judge had been retired for the last two years! Adelle was turning away, with a sense of disappointment, when it came into her mind like an inspiration—"He might still be living in the city!" She inquired, and the court attendant, who did not know, was polite enough to consult a directory and found that sure enough Judge Orcutt was living on Mountcourt Street, which happened to be not far away—in fact just over the hill from the court-house.
Thereupon, Adelle went on her way more swiftly, with a conscious purpose guiding her feet, and found Mountcourt Street—a little, quiet, by-path of a street such as exists in no other city of our famous land. It was not a rifle-shot from the court-house and the busiest centers of the city, yet it was as retired and as reposeful as if it had been forgotten ever since the previous century, when its houses were built. And in the middle of the first block, a sober, little brick house with an old white painted door and window lights, was Judge Orcutt's number. Adelle was shown to a small room in the front of the house and sat down, her heart strangely beating as if she were waiting an appointment with a lover. The house was so still! An old French clock ticked silently on the mantelpiece beneath a glass case. All the chairs and tables, even the rug, in the small room seemed like the house and the street, relics of an orderly, peaceful past. Adelle knew something about furniture and house decoration: it was one of the minor arts patronized by her class, and she had learned enough to talk knowingly about "periods" and "styles." Judge Orcutt's house was of no particular "period" or "style," but it was remarkably harmonious—the garment carefully chosen by a person with traditions.... Presently the servant came back and invited Adelle to go upstairs to the judge's library, as Judge Orcutt was not feeling well to-day, she explained.
The study was like the room below, only larger, lighter, and well filled with books. The judge was sitting near the grate, in which was burning a soft-coal fire. He smiled on Adelle's entrance and apologized for not rising.
"It's the east wind," he explained. "I've known it all my life, but it gets us old fellows, you know, on days like these!"