To make sure of her own grasp of the situation Mrs. Goodchild, who was dying to shriek at the top of her voice, compressed her lips. H. R. instantly perceived the state of affairs and double-turned the key by fiendishly placing his right forefinger to his own lips. This would give to his mother-in-law the two excellent habits of obedience and silence.
He turned to the girl and said: "Grace, don't hide behind your mother. Let me look my fill. It's got to last me a whole week!"
Grace saw in his face and knew from his voice that he was neither acting nor raving. His words were as the gospel, the oldest of all gospels, which, unlike all others, is particularly persuasive in the springtime. He was a fine-looking chap, and the newspapers were full of him, and he was in love with her. He interested her. But of course he was impossible. But also she was New York, and, to prove it, she must be epigrammatic. All her life she had listened to high-class vaudeville. She said, icily, yet with a subtle consciousness of her own humor, "If you wish to worship, why don't you try a church?"
"Which?" he retorted so promptly and meaningly that she almost felt the wedding-ring on her finger. He pursued: "And when? I have the license all ready. See?"
He pulled out of his pocket a long envelope containing a communication from Valiquet's lawyer. "Here it is!" and he held it toward her.
Being young and healthy, she laughed approvingly.
"Has it come to this, in my own house?" exclaimed Mrs. Goodchild in dismay. Being rich and living in New York, she did not know her daughter's affairs.
"Why not?" asked H. R., with rebuking coldness. "In whose house should our marriage be discussed?" Then he spoke to Grace with a fervor that impressed both women: "I love you as men used to love when they were willing to murder for the sake of their love. Look at me!"
He spoke so commandingly that Grace looked, wonder and doubt in her eyes.
In some women incertitude expresses itself in silence. Her mother was of a different larynx. She wailed: "What shall I do? What shall I do?" And sank back in her arm-chair. After one second's hesitation Mrs. Goodchild decided to clasp her own hands with a gesture of helplessness such as Pilate would have used had he been Mrs. Pontius. She did so, turning the big emerald _en cabochon_, so that she could plaintively gaze at it. Eight thousand dollars. Then she turned the gem accusingly in the direction of this man who might, for all she knew, be penniless. He was good-looking. Hendrik was Dutch. So was Rutgers. Could he belong?