"Jump right in and go home with your mother," said Mr. Williams. "I want to see the captain."
And this reminds us that we are before our story. Several notable incidents had occurred in Mrs. Rowan's life before that happy day. One was that, on the first of September, just a month before, Mr. Williams had asked her to be his wife. The two were sitting together after tea, Helen having gone to a concert with her aunt. Mrs. Rowan was hemming handkerchiefs for Mr. Williams, and thinking of Dick, wondering where he was and what he might be doing just at that moment, and Mr. Williams was glancing over the Evening Post, and thinking of himself and his companion.
If the President of the United States, at that time General Taylor, had sent Daniel Webster as his ambassador to invite Mrs. Rowan to preside over the White House for him, she could not have been more astonished.
There was nothing amazing in the manner of the proposal, however. Mr. Williams had just been reading an editorial on the "Wilmot proviso," and, having finished it, took his pipe from his mouth, glanced across the table on which his elbow leaned, and said quietly, "I've been thinking that we may as well get married, as we shall probably always live together. Helen and Dick will some time build nests of their own, and they won't want either of us. I shall treat you as well as I always have, and I hope you will be satisfied with that, and I shall do something for Dick. I'm rather in love with the fellow. I really cannot see why you should object, though I give you credit for being surprised. If you had expected me to ask you, I should have disappointed you. Suppose we should be married before Dick gets home, for a pleasant surprise for him!"
Mrs. Rowan had dropped her work, and sat staring at Mr. Williams, to see if he were jesting.
"I am in earnest," he said. "How does the idea strike you?"
"It strikes me"—she stammered faintly, and stopped there.
"So I perceive," was the dry comment with which he put his pipe between his lips again. "Take time. Don't be in a hurry to answer; I am not a frantic lover of twenty."
Mrs. Rowan sat with her hands clasped on the pile of handkerchiefs in her lap, and tried to think. It would be good for Dick, it would be better for Dick, it would be best for Dick. On Dick's account, she could not dream of refusing; indeed, she would not have presumed to refuse, even had there been no Dick in the case. But, for all that, Mr. Williams's last sentence rang in her ears, and made her eyes fill. Once upon a time—so long ago!—she was young and pretty, and then there was somebody handsomer, better educated, more talented than this man, who was a frantic lover of twenty when he asked her to be his wife. If she had known better then, been more earnest and serious, that blossom day of her life had borne good fruit, perhaps, instead of an apple of Sodom, and her husband might have been still living. If she had loved him less weakly, she might have saved him.
"Well?" said Mr. Williams, having given her ten minutes by the clock.