The rosy little brunette was just setting the table. She had put on a white apron over her dark dress, the bib fastened smoothly across her full bust. She was just depositing with her round arm half-uncovered by the elbow-sleeve, a plate of cold meat by the judge's place, placing the bottle of beer beside it. And as she did so she laughed at the weary little man so that all her white teeth were displayed.
And this must he bear too, to make his comfort complete! Let them eat who would! Soon he was sitting upstairs in the corner of the sofa in his own room; outside the darkness of a spring night came down, and a girl's voice was singing as if in emulation of the nightingales; that must be the little brunette, Adelaide. At last he heard it sounding up from the depths of the garden.
He did not stir until the judge stood before him.
"Now, I should really like to know, Frank--are you bewitched or am I? What is the matter? Where is madame? The little black thing downstairs, who seems to have fallen out of the clouds, says she is 'gone.'--Gone? What does it mean?"
"Gone!" repeated Frank Linden. It sounded so strange that his friend started.
"Something has happened, Frank,--that old woman, the mother-in-law, has done it. Oh, these women!"
The judge gave vent to a long whistle, then he sat down beside Linden and clapped him on the shoulder.
"We'll manage _him_, Frank," he said, comfortingly, "and _she_ will come back, she _must_ come back; you will not even need to ask her. But it was the most foolish thing she could do to run away."
And he began to describe a case that had come up in Frankfort a short time before on the ground of wilful desertion.
"Spare me your law cases," he said roughly. "Do you suppose I would bring her back by force?"
"And what if she will not come of herself, Frank?"
Frank Linden gave his friend a cigar and took one himself, though he did not light it, and as he sat down again he said:
"You can ask that? Have I been in the habit of putting up with imposition, Richard?"
"No, but on what does the man found his claim?"
Frank shrugged his shoulders. "I told you before, that he declared when I turned him out, that he would know how to secure his rights. He is ill now, however," he added.