“Why, judge!” he said, and he put out a hand which Kenton took with trembling reluctance and a dazed stare. “I thought you sailed last Saturday!”
“Well, well! Then I misunderstood,” said Bittridge, and he added: “Why, this is money found in the road! How are all the family? I’ve got my mother here with me; brought her on for a kind of a little outing. She’ll be the most surprised woman in New York when I tell her you’re here yet. We came to this hotel because we knew you had been here, but we didn’t suppose you were here! Well! This is too good! I saw Dick, Friday, but he didn’t say anything about your sailing; I suppose he thought I knew. Didn’t you tell me you were going in a week, that day in your house?”
“Perhaps I did,” Kenton faltered out, his eyes fixed on Bittridge’s with a helpless fascination.
“Well, it don’t matter so long as you’re here. Mother’s in the parlor waiting for me; I won’t risk taking you to her now, judge--right off the train, you know. But I want to bring her to call on Mrs. Kenton as soon after breakfast as you’ll let me. She just idolizes Mrs. Kenton, from what I’ve told her about her. Our rooms ready?” He turned to the clerk, and the clerk called “Front!” to a bellboy, who ran up and took Bittridge’s hand-baggage, and stood waiting to follow him into the parlor. “Well, you must excuse me now, judge. So long!” he said, gayly, and Kenton crept feebly away to the dining-room.
He must have eaten breakfast, but he was not aware of doing so; and the events of his leaving the table and going up in the elevator and finding himself in his wife’s presence did not present themselves consecutively, though they must all have successively occurred. It did not seem to him that he could tell what he knew, but he found himself doing it, and her hearing it with strange quiet.
“Very well,” she said. “I must tell Ellen, and, if she wishes, we must stay in and wait for their call.”
It was painful for Mrs. Kenton to see how the girl flushed when she announced the fact of Bittridge’s presence, for she knew what a strife of hope and shame and pride there was in Ellen’s heart. At first she said that she did not wish to see him, and then when Mrs. Kenton would not say whether she had better see him or not, she added, vaguely, “If he has brought his mother--”