"But what was the use of it all? What came of your talk?"
"Nothing to speak of. It was only a fad of mine. I have a right to an occasional whim, haven't I? I'll be hanged if I'll see a wedding ring worn that way buried in unbought ground. The old hag was a marvel of all that is unwomanly and sinful. But that ring shall be properly buried, and the hand that wears it, because it does wear it. So I'm going to take the woman out of this and put her where she will not have to be a monster in order to live."
And he did what he said he would do. He found a place in some old women's home for that aged demon, and one day he made me go with him to see her. Maybe it was the different dress and the different surroundings, but, it seemed to me, her eyes were not as they were in the low restaurant. The hand that wore the thin gold ring was clean in its pitiful shrunkenness. The creature looked neither hunted nor hunting. She was but an old woman going to the grave so near her, and going, I could not but imagine, to find the one who had given her that gold circlet some half century ago. I rather fancied Harlson's fad. As for him, when I told him so, he only said:
"Oh, of course. Peter told the third assistant bookkeeper to credit Harlson with such or such an amount." And he added; "If those people don't take good care of that old woman there'll be a new superintendent." But they took good care of her.
This is lugging in an incident at great length as an illustration, but
I know of no other way to explain how Harlson so expressed himself when
I asked him how he knew whether the woman of whom he had been talking
was married or not. He felt confident enough.
"Well, what is she like? Can't you describe her? Has she seared your eyes with her loveliness?"
"She hasn't seared my eyes. She has only opened them. Listen to me, you thing of mud! She is just a little brown streak."
"That's an odd description of a woman."
"It's the correct one, though. She's just a little brown streak of a thing."
"Well, I've heard of a man in love with a dream, and in love with a shadow, but never before did I hear of one infatuated with a streak. Where did you meet this creature? Have you known her long?"