He had to refer to the memoir of the Commissioners and to read aloud the passage: “Samuel Stevens, Esq., was the presiding officer of the Board of Commissioners in 1829, whose name and services will be recorded with those of Stephen Allen, and Douglas and Jervis, for the enduring gratitude of the distant generations, whose health, comfort, and safety will, ‘while grass grows and water runs,’ continue to be promoted by the great work to which these gentlemen devoted such faithful and intelligent care.”
Patty nodded: “Well, I’m sure I’m much obliged to them for making New York safe to live in. We can go back now, can’t we?”
“Isn’t it beautiful up here?” he sighed, without much enthusiasm.
“Yes, but the nights are bitter cold and the days are getting raw, and the leaves are nearly all gone. I’ve been here for years and the children have had all the diseases there are and got over them. They’re out of danger. Let’s go back, David.”
When she called him by his first name it was like taking his heart in her soft fingers. He had no will to resist. Besides, the house had lost its integrity. It had played him false. It had permitted evil to prosper, and he had sacrificed his dignity and his revenge to conceal its shame.
Nothing worse could happen in the big city than in the stealthy country. So he sighed again:
“All right! let’s go back!”
She sprang from her chair and kissed him and he took a poltroon delight in the syrup of her lips. She became amazingly a girl again and assailed with a frenzy the tasks of packing up for the removal to town, the closing of the country home, and reopening of the house in St. John’s Park.
She urged that she and Teen and Cuff should drive in and clean the house, air it out, get the new water pipes put in and—while they were at it, why not install gas? It was dangerous but so convenient! All you did was turn a key and set a match and there you were! And what about one of the new hot air furnaces to replace the odious stoves and fireplaces?
She laid plans for such fairy improvements with a spendthrift enthusiasm and proposed that her husband should stay comfortably at home in the country with the two older children while she made the house ready.