“Come!” she said.
Then that gate sprang from its hinges with a shriek of tortured metal, the voice, as it might be, of all the generations of Varicks, raised in frenzied, ineffectual protest. Oh, yes, I suppose the sockets were rusted out and ready to give way; nevertheless, it was a startling and thrilling thing to see. He tossed the door behind him, where it fell with a harsh rattle. And Paula, uncaged at last, came to his heart with a cry, and clung there.
Age warms itself in reflected fires. I was sitting on my favorite bench in Our Square some weeks later, meditating with a mild glow upon the outcome of the encounter between Carlo and his Tiger (for which, by the way, the Bonnie Lassie put in a wholly unjustified claim of half-credit), when two figures walking quite close together approached and stopped in front of me. They were very good to look at, those two, as youth and joy and the splendor of love are always good for old age to look at. I welcomed them to a corner of my bench, facing the Varick mansion, which was poor policy.
“So you haven't gone to the Far East?” I said to Miss Paula.
“No,” she said, “father decided not to take me. He has gone for his health.”
“Nothing serious, I trust,” I said politely.
“He is Suffering,” said Miss Paula primly, “from unrequited objections.” Her smiling and happy regard rested on Carlo and then passed dreamily to the squat and broad and drab old mansion facing us.
“Why!” she cried, “the cage is still there!”
“So it is,” I answered as nonchalantly as I could.
“Then they didn't tear it down.”