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Father Davy's voice, at first very slightly tremulous, gathered force as he went on with the words he had spoken so many times, but never as he was speaking them now to his child, to Phoebe's child, and to the man of her choice. A little flush crept into his thin cheeks.
A loose lace collar lay flat over his shoulders and chest. His French hose was black, and from the tops of his riding-boots there protruded an edging of white lace. He wore a long sword with a plain scabbard and hilt, and on his hands were black gloves, well scented. Phoebe's face wore a smile of pleased recognition, and she stretched forth her right hand as the cavalier approached.
"Say, PLEASE don't tell me who she is, or where she belongs, or anything like that," Grant interposed, with some sarcasm. "I smashed her flat between me and the wall, and I scared the daylights out of her; and I'm told I should have appeared at my best. But who she is, or where she belongs " "She belongs right here." Phoebe's tone was a challenge, whether she meant it to be so or not.
It was during this absence of Phoebe's that Judge Pyncheon once more called and demanded to see Clifford. "You cannot see him," answered Hepzibah. "Clifford has kept his bed since yesterday." "What! Clifford ill!" said the judge, starting. "Then I must, and will see him!" The judge explained the reason for his urgency.
Phoebe's polite cordiality gave place to amazed consternation. Droop raised a deprecating hand. "Now don't you go to think I'm tight or gone crazy. You'll understand it, fer you've ben to high school. Now see! What is it makes the days go by ain't it the daily revolution of the sun?"
Yes by just standing on the secure steel fender to gain the requisite four inches, she could lay her two hands over the top, length for length, and the finger-tips would not meet, any more than hers met Phoebe's when their frock-cuffs were flush with the edge of her father's old model, all those years and years ago. Because her mind was striving to discredit the authenticity of this one.
Phoebe grumbles far less; it is wonderful to hear her say, sometimes, that she did not know it was bedtime, when I go in to fetch the lamp. Reading? ay, she is always reading; but she sleeps a deal, too. I used to look round Phoebe's room with satisfaction now; it had quite lost its stiff, angular look.
Phoebe's presence, and the contiguity of her fresh life to his blighted one, was usually all that he required. Indeed, such was the native gush and play of her spirit, that she was seldom perfectly quiet and undemonstrative, any more than a fountain ever ceases to dimple and warble with its flow.
David maneuvered manfully to send them home in his car and to have Phoebe wait and let him take her home later alone. But Phoebe insisted upon going with Milly and Billy Bob and the youngsters, and the reflection that the distance from the unfashionable quarter inhabited by the little family, back to Phoebe's down-town apartment was very short, depressed him to the point of defiance almost.
That was a dreadful thing to do, to set a forest on fire; a crime against nature as well as against man. She thought of Phoebe's father, perhaps injured, or worse, who could tell? Then with a mental leap she thought of Richard Hook and his sister Maggie; the charm of their personalities; their simplicity; their joy in living.
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