CHAPTER XXV.
FRIENDLY ENEMIES
Ridgway had promised Aline that he would see her soon, and when he found himself in New York he called at the big house on Fifth Avenue, which had for so long been identified as the home of Simon Harley. It bore his impress stamped on it. Its austerity suggested the Puritan rather than the classic conception of simplicity. The immense rooms were as chill as dungeons, and the forlorn little figure in black, lost in the loneliness of their bleakness, wandered to and fro among her retinue of servants like a butterfly beating its wings against a pane of glass.
With both hands extended she ran forward to meet her guest.
“I’m so glad, so glad, so glad to see you.”
The joy-note in her voice was irrepressible. She had been alone for weeks with the conventional gloom that made an obsession of the shadow of death which enveloped the house. All voices and footsteps had been subdued to harmonize with the grief of the mistress of this mausoleum. Now she heard the sharp tread of this man unafraid, and saw the alert vitality of his confident bearing. It was like a breath of the hills to a parched traveler.
“I told you I would come.”
“Yes. I’ve been looking for you every day. I’ve checked each one off on my calendar. It’s been three weeks and five days since I saw you.”
“I thought it was a year,” he laughed, and the sound of his uncurbed voice rang strangely in this room given to murmurs.
“Tell me about everything. How is Virginia, and Mrs. Mott, and Mr. Yesler? And is he really engaged to that sweet little school-teacher? And how does Mr. Hobart like being senator?”
“Not more than a dozen questions permitted at a time. Begin again, please.”