CHAPTER III

Some five or six weeks after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, Judge Barton's Australian chestnuts were rattling their silver-plated harness on the Luneta driveway at sunset, while their owner was threading the mazes of a Sunday-night carriage jam. He had that day returned from a short vacation in Japan, where he had gone to recuperate after his attack of fever.

The hot season was coming on apace, and but little breeze disturbed the waters of the bay, which were sombred by the reflections of slate-colored clouds streaked across the zenith. The brilliancy of the sunset seemed to have driven apart the clouds in the west, however, where the sky was enamelled in hues of jade and amber and turquoise, seamed here and there with gold, and occasionally with a fading line of dark vapor. With the purple shapes of the mountains extending to right and left, with the foreshortened sweep of the waters, and with the motionless lines of the anchored vessels, the distant picture flamed out like a theatre curtain, while the motley assemblage which filled the oval around the bandstand was not unsuggestive of a waiting audience.

As he was in the act of leaning forward to note the outline of a great five-masted freighter, anchored abreast the bandstand, Judge Barton caught sight of a profile which was vaguely familiar to him, but which, for a moment, he quite failed to associate with a name. A second later, he remembered that he had always seen Miss Ponsonby in her nurse's cap, and he could not determine whether it was the harmonious effect of imported millinery or some radical change in herself which lent a charm to her face never found there before.

As for the man at her side, it was something of a triumph to perceive the hat at just the angle at which the Judge's imagination had pictured it, the angle affected by a very smart enlisted man.

It was not wholly in response to the political instinct which, in a democracy, bestows handshakes in place of largesse, that Judge Barton made his way to the carriage in which Miss Ponsonby sat. Since the miserable Christmas Eve when he had succeeded in pricking her into a fencing match, he had not seen her. On the following day, she was put on day duty in another ward, in accordance with some mysterious system of change pursued in the hospital. Within three or four days more, the Judge was pronounced able to begin the journey up the China coast, from which he had only that day returned. When he left the hospital, Collingwood was convalescent, but was suffering from a moroseness which his observant neighbor attributed to thwarted affection.

Miss Ponsonby greeted her quondam patient not with coldness, which may imply an intentionally concealed interest, but lifelessly, with an indifference almost impertinent. Judge Barton felt the indifference, was chilled by it, and revenged himself by a guarded significance of manner which did not amount to ill breeding, but which hinted at an expectation gratified, and made her, as he was delighted to perceive, self-conscious and ill at ease. The feeling with which he had approached her was genial and kindly. To find himself suddenly enveloped in the atmosphere of challenge, of reserve, of dumb interrogation of the providential workings of this world, stirred up in him the old desire to push her just a little bit closer to the wall against which her back was so resolutely set. It was not a chivalrous feeling, but it was a very human and natural one, which might have been shared by millions of the Judge's fellow-citizens, far more pretentious than he was in the matter of Christian charity and brotherhood.

Miss Ponsonby was looking even paler and thinner than she had looked at Christmas. There was a purpling thickness in her eyelids, there was a depth of shadow beneath, which, to an attentive observer, hinted at tears and vigils in the night. In her listlessness, and in a sweet effort in her smile, the Judge found, in the further course of the talk, the signs of conquest. It was as if, driven to bay, she sought help even from her enemies to ease the agony of surrender. The Judge was not hard-hearted. So long as she fought, he was willing to stab and prick. At the first sign of feminine weakness, at the sight of her beaten and shrinking, he was ready to forget that only a few weeks before he had been rather eager to see her reduced to humility. His concern for her finally found utterance in the hope that she was going to indulge in a much needed rest. "You know I always said, when I was in the hospital, that you needed nursing just as much as Collingwood and I did, if not more," he added.

She thanked him rather formally, and he detected in her stiffness an access of shyness. A faint color dyed her cheek.

Collingwood, whose resemblance to a pagan deity--or to a young ruffian--was stronger than ever, broke in joyously:

"Oh, she's going to take a vacation, all right--a long one, in fact, for the rest of her life--with me. You are quite right, Judge. She does need care, and I'll see that she gets it."

Miss Ponsonby's face rivalled the afterglow into which the gorgeous spectacle before them was beginning to melt like metals fused in a crucible; but, after an instant, she lifted her eyes and gazed with a remarkable intensity at Judge Barton. If her self-consciousness had originated in a prescience of his astonishment, it was not more painful than his own chagrin at having betrayed himself. He had certainly not expected her to marry Martin Collingwood. He had taken a mild pleasure in letting her perceive that he divined her struggles in a compromise with her pride for the sake of a few passing attentions and pleasures; but never had it occurred to him that she could possibly bridge the distance between herself and Collingwood in marriage. To have exhibited his utter amazement enraged him with himself. He recovered himself promptly, however, and, in turn, tendered a firm white hand to each.

"Bless you, my children," he said blandly, "I showed some surprise, but really I don't know why. The thing is obviously appropriate."

There was a dryness in Collingwood's reply which made him, for a moment, almost as impressive as the Judge himself.

"I am glad you think so. That was my opinion from the first, but I had considerable difficulty in getting Miss Ponsonby to take my view of it, and even yet she has her moments of doubt."

Miss Ponsonby gave him a shy little smile, but at the end of the fleeting movement, her eyes again sought the Judge's with the same questioning intensity, so that he was amazed to find himself answering aloud.

"Obviously appropriate," he repeated, "and for a hundred reasons: first, my dear young lady, so charming a person as yourself has no business rusting out in the fatigues of your profession; second, because this young free-lance needs somebody to look after him; third, because marriage is to be encouraged on general principles." At this point he seemed to recognize the necessity of steering the conversational bark into safer waters, and endeavored to divert it by pleasantry at his own expense. "Although I have not been able to induce any young woman to share my joys and sorrows, believe me, it is not because I am opposed to the institution. If I am an old bachelor, it is not for lack of trying to marry."

It was Collingwood who made the humanely frank rejoinder, "I guess you haven't tried very hard since you have been on the bench, have you, Judge?"

It is strange how a man may both resent a fact and take pride in it. Six weeks before, when the Judge had wished to put a squabbling young woman in her place, he had rather gloried in the material advantages connected with his position. A hint that his position might win him a wife when his personality unaided could not do so, rasped his nerves. Charlotte saw him wince and returned good for evil.

"Ah! you are not sincere. You are too modern to believe in marriage."

"Is it in an ironical spirit, then, do you think, that I beg an invitation to yours?"

"But it will be so very quiet--not even cards or cake; and only one or two of Mr. Collingwood's friends, and one or two of mine, to give us countenance."

"To keep us from feeling that we are eloping," said Collingwood blithely.

"Am I not the very man to do that? If there is no other way, I must be railroaded in in an official capacity. Does not Collingwood need a best man? Does not the marriage ceremony call for a parent to give the bride away--'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?'--and all that?"

This was pure advertising propaganda, a way to one of those newspaper squibs which delight both the snobbishness and the sentimentality of Americans. In the slight pause which ensued, the Judge had a momentary sensation of being weighed in a very delicately balanced mind, and of being found wanting. But Charlotte only said, "You may come if you wish. But it is sooner than you anticipate--very soon."

"To-morrow morning at seven-thirty," interjected Collingwood. "We are going out on the Coastguard boat at ten."

Here was a burning of bridges, a lover who wooed and a maid who did not dally! The Judge asked where the ceremony would take place, and was told to come to a certain church not far from the hospital. Once more his over-restraint betrayed him, and Miss Ponsonby guessed his surprise.

"We were both brought up Catholics," she said, "and though we have neither of us clung very closely to the Mother Church, that is where we naturally turn on such an occasion. We have not needed a dispensation. The path has been easy." She smiled enigmatically.

"No, we haven't needed a dispensation from the Pope," said Collingwood, "but apparently we cannot manage our own affairs without the help of the Civil Government. I am not sure that we shall get through to-morrow without the appearance of some of the gang declaring that there are reasons why this woman should not be married to this man."

"The Civil Government?" repeated Judge Barton, mystified. Then a light broke upon him. "Of course--you are under contract." He addressed Miss Ponsonby.

"My service under contract was fulfilled five months ago," she replied. "I am at liberty to leave Government employ any moment I wish."

"But they are long on eminent medicos and short on nurses," went on Collingwood, whose spirits were evidently riotous, "and when Miss Ponsonby sent in her resignation, they informed her of the fact, and, by the Lord! they had the effrontery to expect us to arrange our affairs to suit their convenience. The letter has gone back and forth till it has eighteen endorsements. It hove in sight a few days ago in an extra large envelope. I told Charlotte to put on a nineteenth, and to end the whole matter by telling the Civil Commission and the Bureau of Health and the Marine Hospital Service all three to go to the devil."

"Which it was manifestly impossible for me to do," added Miss Ponsonby, blushing.

"Manifestly," assented the Judge, with a short laugh. To him whose whole policy was diplomacy here was temerity in a twentieth century citizen of the American Republic to mock the Civil Commission. As well a Venetian in the twelfth had jeered at the Council of Ten.

"Manifestly is a good word," Collingwood went on. "It was, as you say, manifestly impossible that Miss Ponsonby should tell the Bureau of Health to go to the devil, but it was manifestly ordained that I should write them a letter, telling them what I thought of them, and telling them to go to the devil's place of residence; which I