Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/129

 "It was a pleasure, madam, a pleasure," and going to the door, he bowed her out of his widowed house.

When she had gone, Moses Slade returned to his study and before going back to his work he sat for a long time lost in thought. The shadow of a smile encircled the rather hard, virtuous lips. He smiled because he was thinking of Emma, of her fine figure and healthy, rosy face, of the curve of the full bosom, and the hips from which her dress flowed away like the waters of a fountain.

From the very moment of Minnie's death—indeed, even long before, during the dragging, heavy-footed years of her invalidism—he had been thinking, with a deep sense of guilt, of a second marriage. The guilt had faded away by now, for Minnie had been in her grave for two summers and he could turn his thoughts in such a direction, freely and with a clear conscience. After all, he was a fine, vigorous man, in his prime. People talked about fifty-five as old age—a time when a man should begin to think of other things; but people didn't know until they were fifty-five. He had talked like that himself once a long while ago. And now, look at him, as good a man as ever he was, and better, when it came to brains and head. Why, with all the experience he had had. . ..

As he sat there, talking to himself, his earnestness became so great that his lips began to move, forming the words as if he were holding a conversation, even arguing, with another Moses Slade, who sat just across from him in the monstrous chair on the opposite side