CHAPTER XX.
JUDGE OWEN AND HIS DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE--TWO CRIMINALS AT THE BAR, WITH ASPECIAL EDICT FOLLOWING--A ROW AT WALLACK'S, AND ONE MORE RECOGNITION.
It has again been unavoidable, in following the fortunes of othercharacters connected with this narration, to lose sight of those whohave prominently figured in the mansion of Judge Owen--the Judgehimself, his wife, his daughter Emily, Aunt Martha, and the two loverswho fought over that very pretty little bone as if they had been dogsand she a tit-bit of very different description. But it is one of thefirst principles of conducting the successful march of an army, that nostragglers should be allowed to lag too far behind, lest a suddenonslaught upon them might cause a panic extending to all the otherportions of the force. Let the Judge and his family, then, be kept up asnearly as possible to the march of the main body; and especially let notpretty Emily Owen and her mischievous printer-lover be lost from theranks by any contingency.
Aunt Martha saw farther into futurity than her niece, when she decidedthat the row between Frank Wallace and Colonel John Boadley Bancker, ifit came to the Judge's ears, would be likely to make affairs much worseinstead of better; and Emily and she had some serious conversation overthe prospect, that night of the street accident, after both the rivalshad gone,--which did not tend to make the young girl go to her whitepillow with the most blissful of anticipations. The younger lady thoughtit doubtful whether the matter need come to the knowledge of her fatherat all, as she did not believe that the Colonel would so far bemeanhimself as to make a complaint to the father of the young girl he waspursuing, of the advantages which another suitor might possess over himin the mind of the girl herself. Aunt Martha, who had seen somewhat morethan her niece of the world and its meanness, did not consider theColonel too proud to take such a course, if he believed himself likelyto gain by it; and besides--she remembered, what her niece did not, thatthey were by no means alone in the house when the little affairoccurred. Servants--those important personages, who in modern days keepthe houses and permit their masters and mistresses, on the payment of around sum per week, to live in the house with them--those ubiquitouspersonages, who seem to have the faculty of being precisely where theyare not wanted, when any family trouble is to be ventilated,--servantswere in the house at the time, and there was no guaranty whatever thatthey had not been sufficiently near to hear every awkward word that hadbeen spoken.
The good Aunt felt that she had the more cause to be apprehensive in thelatter direction, from some observations that she had accidentally madea few weeks before. Not long after the coming into the house of MissHetty, cook and kitchen girl, (she is certainly entitled to the prefixof "Miss," at least once, from the fact of her holding her head a littlehigher than any member of the family) a little after her advent, we say,Aunt Martha happened one evening to pass through the lower hall, in listslippers, and accidentally became aware that two persons were talking ina very low tone, just within the door of the dining-room. Perhaps it mayhave been accidentally, but possibly on purpose, that she took oneglance through the crack of the door, herself unobserved, and noticedthat the talkers were Judge Owen and Hetty. The tone was certainlyconfidential, and the two stood very near together. Had Mrs. MarthaWest not been aware of certain points in her brother's character whichwould make a criminal flirtation with a servant-girl in his own houseimpossible, she might have drawn the conclusion that some impropriety ofthat kind was on foot. As it was, she became satisfied that some of herprevious suspicions were correct, and that Judge Owen, who habituallywent to the intelligence-offices and selected the servants when anychange became necessary, was capable of the ineffable meanness ofbribing his domestics to play the spy on his own household and detailall the occurrences to him! Where the estimable man had picked up thatparticular meanness, she had no idea, nor is this a place in which tohazard a suggestion. If it was so, it might be suggested that thepractice of hearing and allowing weight to spy testimony, caught throughkey-holes and the cracks of doors, or picked up by lounging at people'selbows on sidewalks and in bar-rooms, had possibly some connection withthe application of the same system to his own household.
Perhaps there may be persons upright and straight-forward enoughthemselves, and unsuspicious enough of the vices and meannesses ofothers, to doubt whether such things as those just hinted at, exist inthe great city. To such it might not be amiss to say, that there areoperations of this character, in what is called "respectable society,"so much worse than the mere procured espionage of servants, that theymake that atrocity almost endurable. Fancy the husband of a second wifekeeping his eldest daughter by a former marriage, herself a marriedwoman, in the same house with his wife, with orders to keep that wifeconstantly in view, to watch her when she receives company, dog her whenshe goes out, and dole out to her the necessaries for the family fromclosets, chests and cupboards of which she [the daughter] keeps thekeys! Fancy these things, and the wife submitting to them, perforce! Andthen understand, what is the humiliating truth, that the lady subjectedto these practices is a most beautiful and accomplished favorite,delighting thousands by her public appearances, envied by all, andsupposed to be rolling in wealth and revelling in comfort!
Not long ago there was a story going the rounds of the press, of somespicy sporting operations in England, in which one trainer and jockeythrew one of his creatures, in the disguise of a stable-boy, into thestables of another, to watch the appearance and action of his horses, tooverhear what he could of the conversation of the trainer, to discoverfor what cups and matches they were about to be entered, and to makeweekly reports to him, through letters pretendedly addressed to theboy's "mother," so that he could take advantage of the knowledge sounfairly attained, in making up his betting-book. By a mere accident thetrainer discovered what kind of an emissary of the enemy was quarteredin his stables, and instead of kicking him out he merely _gave himplenty to report_. He managed to have the boy overhear all sorts ofmanufactured conversations, rode his horses unfairly on thetraining-course, stuffed him with false reports of the matches for whichthey were entered, and, in short, gave him such budgets to send home tohis master, that the latter grew completely mystified, bet on the losingchances instead of the winning ones, and lost about twenty thousandpounds, which went into the pocket of the intended victim. The story isa good one, and for the honor of humanity ought to be true.
Not many years ago a jealous old husband in this city, who had falleninto the misfortune of a young and handsome wife, grew jealous of herwithout the least cause, and descended to the execrable meanness ofputting one of the chamber-maids under pay to play the detective andreport to him what letters her mistress received and all the "goings on"in the house. Biddy was not quite keen enough for her new position, andthe bright eyes of the young wife were not long in discovering that shewas watched and dogged! What did the outraged wife? Send the vixenpacking, bag and baggage, with a boxed ear for a parting present, as shemight have done with all propriety? Not at all--she retained her andkept her own discovery a secret, merely adopting the same plan as ourfriend the trainer, and giving her _something to tell_. The wifefortunately had half a dozen male cousins, living at a distance, and asmany female friends, living near. Between these two corps of assistantsshe managed to receive such letters, accidentally dropped for theservant-girl to finger, and received such clandestine visits when herhusband was absent and at suspicious hours, as left no doubt whatever inthe mind of a _reasonable_ man like the husband, that she must beterribly false to her marital vows. The catastrophe of all this need notbe given: it was final enough, in all conscience, and sent the husbanddown town one day with a dim consciousness that he had made himself thegreatest fool since Adam, and that an early burial would not be so greata calamity after all!
Unfortunately Judge Owen, of this writing, had no such sharp-witted andreckless opponent, and his meanness was left to work itself out in anatural manner. Aunt Martha's apprehensions were not idle, as was provedvery soon after. The Judge and his wife returned from their litt
le tripup the Hudson, on the second day after their departure; and within threehours after their arrival, before the Judge had been absent from thehouse a moment and before Colonel Boadley Bancker could by any meanshave managed to see him, the storm of paternal wrath and indignationburst on the devoted heads for which it was intended.
The gas had just been lighted on the floor below, and Aunt Martha andEmily were seated enjoying the summer twilight in the front-room of thelatter, up-stairs, when the stentorian voice of the Judge was heardbawling from the hall:
"Martha--Emily--come down here a moment!"
"There it is! there is trouble ahead! I knew it!" said Aunt Martha.
"He _cannot_ have heard anything about it, yet," said the niece.
"He _has_, I am sure of it!" answered the Aunt. "We may as well go downand take the thunder-storm, at once, as have it hanging over us for amonth."
"Oh, Aunt, I cannot endure to have Papa scold, when he is in one of histerrible humors," said the frightened girl. "I have done nothing, that Iknow of; but you don't know what rough words he says to me sometimes,and I have been almost afraid that he would strike me with that heavyhand! I believe I should _die_ if he did."
"No, child, you would not _die_, I think," said the more practical Aunt,"but something might occur for which your father would one day be quiteas sorry--your last particle of love and respect for him might die, andthat would be sadder than the death of many bodies. But come, Emily; weshall be called again in a moment."
Aunt and niece descended the stairs to the parlor, the latter tremblinglike a leaf in the wind and the former in a strange flutter that waspart trepidation and part indignation. They found affairs in the parlorin a very promising condition, as the aunt had suspected. Judge Owen wastoo angry to sit in his large chair, as he would have liked to do, andreceive the culprits with judicial dignity. He was walking the floor,with his hands behind his back and every indication of very stormyweather on his countenance. He looked bigger and more burly than ever,and less than ever like what the brother and father should have been, tothe two who entered. Mrs. Owen sat in a rocking-chair, swaying backwardand forward, with her hand to her eyes and very much the appearance of awhipped child who had been set down in that chair with orders to be"good." It was not supposable that the Judge had been whipping her,physically; but he had unquestionably been "getting his hand in" for theexercise that was to come, by reading her a severe lecture uponeverything that she had done and everything she had _not_ done, sincethe day they were married.
"So then!" he broke out, the moment the culprits appeared in view. "Thisis the kind of order you keep in my house--_my_ house!" and heemphasized the possessive pronoun so severely that the poor little wordmust have had a hard time of it among his strong front teeth.
Emily, as yet, replied nothing. But Aunt Martha said:
"Well really, brother, I do not see that the house is in very bad order!Perhaps that rocker is a little out of place, and the _etagere_--"
"D--n it, woman, I am not talking of the furniture, and you know it!"thundered the Judge.
"William Owen!" said Aunt Martha, who had not gone through fifty or ahundred such conflicts without deriving some controversial profit fromthem--"I do not choose to be sworn at, in _your_ house or the house ofany other man. If you were a gentleman, you would not be guilty of theoutrage."
Emily trembled. Here was Jupiter plucked by the beard, and called hardnames to his face, by one of the mere underlings of his dominions!William Owen not a gentleman! _Judge_ Owen not a gentleman! Could humanpresumption go farther? What would be the end of this?
"I will swear as I like, and when I like!" said the Judge, after a pauseof an instant. But he did not swear again immediately, and not at allagain at his sister, during the whole interview, it was noticeable.Brutality is not best met by brutality; but it is a mistake to supposethat it is best met by abject submission. What it needs, as its masterand corrective, is _dignified firmness_.
"So this is the way, is it," the Judge went on. "The moment my back isturned, my house is full of low characters, and quarrelling and fightingbecome the order of the day."
"When did all this occur?" asked Aunt Martha, innocently.
"The very evening I left!" thundered the Judge.
"And how have you found it all out, so soon?" queried his sister,looking him very calmly in the eyes.
It may be a libel, for which an action would lie, to say that Judge Owenblushed at this home-thrust. He certainly reddened, but that may havebeen with anger--not shame.
"How do I know it? What business is that of yours, woman? It is enoughto say that I _do_ know it, and that I will break all that sort of thingup, or I will break half a dozen heads!" This was a favorite simile ofthe Judge's, because it brought in the word "break" twice, in such aneffective manner. "Well, Miss Emily Owen, what have you to say to allthis?" It may be libel, again, to say that the Judge was sheering offhis vessel from a battery that worried him, to engage one that seemedcomparatively helpless; but really the whole thing bore that appearance.
"I, father? I have nothing to say," returned the daughter, "and for thatreason I have not said anything."
"You do not deny, then," thundered the Judge, his voice rising higherbecause he had a younger, lower-voiced and less formidable antagonist,"that on the very night I went away there was low company in this house,and that--"
Perhaps Emily Owen had never presumed to interrupt her father half adozen times during her life, but we have before seen that she _could_ doso, even wickedly, when fully aroused, and the temptation to do so inthe present instance was overpowering. Besides, she had just caught alesson from her aunt, in the "_womanly_ art of self-defence," themuscular development for which lies in the tongue.
"Do you call Colonel Bancker low company, father?"
"Colonel Bancker? No, girl! Colonel Bancker is a gentleman and asoldier," replied the Judge. "I am speaking of that low, contemptiblescoundrel, Wallace."
"And _he_ has been in the habit of coming here with your consent, papa,"answered the daughter, "and so I do not know how we were to blame forreceiving the visits of people when you were gone, whom you were in thehabit of receiving when you were at home."
"Hush, child! Hush, Emily!" Mrs. Owen felt it necessary to say at thismoment. She had not before spoken a word, but she may have felt thatthat incarnation of reason and dignity, her husband, was "taking damage"at the hands of very ordinary mortals. "Hush, child--do not bandy wordswith your father."
"No, miss, do not bandy words with _me_!" roared the Judge, put exactlyupon the right track, from which he had before strayed a little, by thewords of his wife. "_I_ am master in this house, as I mean to let youknow!" Humble Judge!--he _had_ let them know it, long before, quite asmuch as lay in his power. "I will not allow myself to be run over inthis manner, any longer!" Ponderous and self-sacrificing Judge!--apartfrom the fact that no one in that house had ever tried the experiment,what a vehicle it would have been that could "run over" that man withoutdanger from the encounter! And now gathering strength and force as wellas anger, as he rolled down the mountain of denunciation, he went on: "Ihave called you down, both of you, and you especially, Emily, to make afinal settlement with you! I have told you before that you should marryColonel John Boadley Bancker, and I need not tell you again, for byG--you _shall_! And now I tell you something more. If you ever permitthat d--d low-lived, miserable, contemptible puppy, whom you call FrankWallace, to cross the door-step of this house again, I will break everybone in his infernal carcase; and when he goes into the street, you gowith him! Do you hear?"
"Yes, father, I hear," said his daughter.
"Yes, we both hear, as I suppose you intended it for both of us," saidhis sister.
"I intended it for _everybody_!" roared the Judge. "Now let us seewhether you obey or not! Come, Mrs. Owen, is supper ready?"
Probably the Judge supposed that he had supplied both the others withquite as much supper as they needed, as he did not extend the invitationto either
. He certainly had done so: they were both "full," in one senseof the word if not in the other. His daughter was "full" of trouble andanxiety; and Aunt Martha was "full" of a more dangerousfeeling--outraged pride and indignation.
"Poor Frank!--he cannot come to the house any more!" said the younggirl, when they had left the parlor. "What shall I do? Aunt--Aunt--don'tscold me, but I _love him_. That is the truth; and don't _you_ scold me,but help me if you can."
"Until this hour, Emily," said the aunt, gravely, and taking the hand ofher niece kindly in her own, "I had simply been determined that youshould not be forced into a marriage with Colonel Bancker, if I couldprevent it. Within this half hour I have made up my mind to go farther.I know that you love Frank Wallace; I believe him to be a good man, andI know him to be a brave one; and now you shall marry him, if any aid_I_ can offer will help you to that end!"
"Aunt! Aunt! dear, good, kind Aunt!" cried the young girl, throwingherself into the widow's arms and giving her such a hug and such a stormof kisses as would have made Frank Wallace whistle "Hail Columbia" and"Abraham's Daughter" for forty-eight hours in succession.
Such was the radical effect, towards carrying out his determination inregard to each of the two rivals, produced by Judge Owen's ultimatum. Hewas not the first man, and he probably will not be the last, to pour thedrop too much into the bucket of endurance and add that last feather tothe load which weighs down the camel of patience. Something more of the"effect" will be seen in this immediate connection.
Judge Owen had occasion to attend a political caucus, at one of thedown-town hotels, early in the evening of the second day from that onwhich the collision with his sister and daughter had occurred; and heconsequently did not go home to dinner when his court adjourned. Hedined at the hotel where the caucus took place, and afterwards strolledup Broadway, airing his portly figure, and intending to take theThird-Avenue cars at Astor Place or Fourteenth Street. When he cameopposite Wallack's Theatre, at about nine o'clock, the lights shonebrightly before the door, the placards announcing the "ReturnedVolunteer" and "Mischievous Annie" looked tempting, and as Judge Owenhad an eye for the drama and was officially marked "D.H." on the book atthe gate, he concluded to see the balance of the performance.
He passed in. Florence was just indulging in that terrible war-dance ofjealousy which follows the supposed discovery of the fact that the wifeof Bill Williams has taken up with a Picaninny, and the laughter andapplause were uproarious. The Judge found some acquaintances in thelobby, and chatted with them while he watched the piece and whilewaiting for the next.
Finally another friend, a family acquaintance, came up the aisle, fromthe orchestra-seats, probably on his way to those pleasant lower regionsin which refreshment to the inner man is dispensed. As he shook handswith the Judge, he said:
"Ah, Judge, I did not know that you were here. I saw your daughter, justnow, down in the orchestra, but I am sure she did not come in with you."
"My daughter!" said the Judge, surprised, "I think you must be mistaken.Mrs. Owen did not speak of coming to the theatre this evening."
"Oh," said the acquaintance, "Mrs. Owen is not here. I should have seenher if she had been. Your daughter came in with a young man, and theyare sitting together down there in the second row from the front."
"You do not know the young man?" asked the Judge, on whom the compoundnoun for some cause produced an unpleasant effect.
"No," answered the acquaintance, "I do not know him. He is a rathergood-looking young fellow, short, with brown curly hair, and amoustache, and dressed in light-gray. No doubt you know him by thedescription."
Judge Owen _did_ know him by the description, but too well! That shortgood-looking young man with the curly hair, the moustache and thelight-gray clothes, was as certainly the man he had forbidden his houseand the company of his daughter, as his own name was Owen and hisdignity a judicial one!
Here was an outrage!--witness it ye fathers whose daughters do notalways obey your high behests. Here was a call for the exercise of thehighest qualities of authority!--bear witness to that, all you goodpeople who have at one time or another dragged your wives out ofchurches because you did not like the ritual, or who have dragged them_into_ churches because suitors armed with money-bags or aristocraticnames or political influence, stood within and beckoned! Here was anecessity for proving what Judge Owen had only a day or two before soloudly asserted--his ascendency in his own household. Here was anopportunity to show to the public that Judge Owen, arbiter of the legaldestinies of his fellow-men when they did not range beyond a certaininsignificant number of dollars, was at once a Solon and a Draco in hisown domestic relations. Great men _will_ develope themselves at someperiod or other in their lives, however they may previously have beenkept back by adverse circumstances; and Judge Owen had never yet enjoyedthe opportunity of showing half his mighty energies. Armed with thedouble power of a parent and the law, he felt that he could combatanything--even a young and delicate woman: gifted with a rigid sense ofright which rose above all personal considerations, he felt that to thatright he could sacrifice anything--even the privacy and sanctity of hisdomestic relations.
The great men of old had done something in that way: Brutus had laid hisson, without a tear or a groan, on the altar of his country; Virginiushad slain his daughter when her perilled honor demanded that violentdeed; and only half a century before his own time, Napoleon had given upa beloved Empress and married a royal nobody, for the sake of preservingthe dynasty that his people so demanded. It only remained for WilliamOwen, Judge, to emulate those great examples and drag his daughter outof the theatre!
It may have been that Judge Owen did not think of quite all those greatexamples, as he walked broadly and pompously down the aisle, disturbingthe audience just when the curtain was rising on the second piece; buthe certainly bore himself as if he remembered all of them and a fewhundreds more. Anxious spectators looked at him as he came down,speculating painfully whether he was likely to take his seat in front of_them_, and calculating what would be their chances of seeing in thatevent. But the Judge was not going to sit down--no! At the gate heencountered a momentary obstruction, in the shape of the usher wholooked after the orchestra tickets; but he swept him away as a springfreshet might carry away a bundle of obstructing sedge, by a majesticwave of the hand and the information that he was merely going down therefor a moment on business.
Then he strode on down the aisle, unobserved as yet by the lovers, whosat in the seat next the front and within three or four places of theend of the row, enjoying the dramatic entertainment and each others'company about equally. Perhaps they sat a very little closer togetherthan they might have done had there been no parental objection in theway; and under the folds of Emily's dark mantilla, which lay upon herlap, there may have been two hands clasped together. Let the young andthe loving, whose province it is to make such follies half the materialof their lives, decide whether affairs were likely to be exactly in theshape suggested,--as also, whether at any time during the evening, whenit had become necessary for Frank Wallace to make a remark to hiscompanion, he had or had not leaned down his lips so close to her ear asalmost to kiss its pink pendant.
The first intimation had by the absorbed lovers that the paternal bombwas bursting in the neighborhood, was conveyed by the Judge halting atthe end of their row, leaning over the two or three people between,without any apology, stretching out his arm, and saying in his loud,coarse voice:
"Miss Emily Owen, you are wanted at home."
The blood flew to the face of the young girl in an instant, though itwas the blood of anxiety and not of shame, and she asked:
"Is any one ill--hurt?--My mother--"
"Your mother is well, and there is no one sick at home," said the Judge,determined that his lesson to his daughter should not be balked by anyone of the audience thinking him less a brute than he was. "But I findyou here in improper company and against my orders; and I command you toleave that man and come home with me instantly."
> Decided sensation in the orchestra-seats, and even on the stage, whereMrs. Florence paused in the middle of one of her most effectiveYankeeisms, to know what caused the interruption. Sensation in a goodmany fingers, that they would like to be applied violently to the earsof the man who could speak in that manner to so sweet-looking a girl, nomatter under what provocation. A few hisses and cries of "Hush-h-h!""Hush-h-h!" Poor Emily had sunk back in her chair, the moment heranxiety was relieved by mortification, merely saying in a pleadingvoice, as if to disarm her tyrant:
"Oh, father!"
Frank Wallace, meanwhile, had sprung to his feet, the moment theopprobrious epithet was applied to him; and though he distinctly sawthat the intruder was the puissant Judge Owen, Emily's father, and largeenough, physically, to eat him for lunch--he was on the point ofspringing across the intervening space and giving him a taste of hisgymnastic quality. This would have been terribly improper, no doubt,towards a man much older than himself, and the father of the girl he yethoped one day to make his wife; but the spectators, had he done so, andcould they have known all the facts of the case, would have been muchmore likely to forgive him than the miserable hound (now a miserablesecessionist--thank Heaven for his choice!) who bore a military title tohis name, a few years ago, and sat still in one of the theatres of thiscity, without daring to lift a hand in opposition, while thejust-married wife by his side was brutally caned by her millionairefather for daring to marry _him_! High temper may be dangerous, and therough hand something to be avoided and reprobated; but there issomething worse in the extreme opposite, and humanity worse sickens atthe sight of an abject poltroon, than at any other worthless fungus thatsprings as an excrescence from God's footstool.
All the saints be praised for these little women! They _are_, after all,the balance-wheels of life, and the whole machinery would run riot andgo to destruction without them. They bring us to ourselves, often, andso save us _from_ ourselves. When they advise peace and patience, theyare generally right, for at such times violence is seldom politic. FrankWallace would probably have carried out his violent first intention, butfor the hand of Emily which dropped upon his arm almost before he hadrisen, and the soft voice which spoke in his ear, very hurriedly:
"Don't, Frank, for _my_ sake! Let me go, and sit still. You shall see meagain in a day or two. _I'll_ pay Pa for this!"
Very much consoled by these words, and especially by the last clause,Frank Wallace resumed his seat, merely indulging in a remark which washeard by many around him, and which may or may not have been heard bythe person at whom it was aimed:
"Bah! you big brute!"
A little suppressed clapping of hands in the neighborhood, which theactors probably thought intended for themselves, but which certainly wasnot. Meanwhile Emily Owen, dropping her hand by some kind ofunexplainable intuition to the very spot where Frank's was lying, gaveit a quick squeeze, then stumbled gracefully over the legs of thepersons sitting between her and the aisle, and followed her father. Asshe passed two or three steps up the aisle, the Judge leadingpompously, and the gate-keeper calculating the chances of being able tocrush him by accidentally letting the iron gate slam to against hislegs,--she encountered a recognition that was almost an adventure. Ayoung girl who sat in the next to the end seat of the back-row of theorchestra, leaned over the gentleman outside and caught her hand,saying:
"Emily Owen--I know it is! Do you not remember me?"
"Josephine Harris! How glad I am to see you!" was the reply of Emily,the moment her eyes fairly took in the face and figure before her.
"I could not see your face before, and did not know that you were here.How long it is since I saw you!--ever since I left Rutgers, and you werestill hammering away there!" said Josephine Harris, who was indeed theother, having come down to Wallack's with a party of friends, for theevening, and who had not before had a chance to recognize her old friendand school-fellow at the Rutgers Institute.
"Come and see me. Papa is in a hurry, and I cannot wait," said Emily,doubtful whether her friend had or had not observed the precedingmovements. "I have not time for a card--look in the Directory and sendme yours. Good night!" and in a moment she was gone, following the Judgeto that mental slaughter involved in riding home with him in his presentmood, and leaving the performance to pass on again as if no interruptionhad occurred.
As may be supposed, Frank Wallace was something of an "object ofinterest" for the small remainder of the evening; but he had noacquaintances in the neighborhood, and not much remark was ventured. Oneman behind him, indeed, leaned over and said: "Lost your girl, eh?" butFrank's "Ya-a-s!" was so broad and discouraging for any furtherquestions, that the inquiry was not pursued. Most men, under similarcircumstances, would have left the theatre at once, to avoid observationand to hide annoyance: he did not, and he may have acted wisely orunwisely in that course of conduct.
Josephine Harris _had_ observed the preceding movements on the part ofJudge Owen, and it was through recognition of his figure that she lookedafter and recognized Emily. Had the latter been left quietly sittingbeside her lover, her schoolmate would probably not have seen her face,they would have left the theatre without recognition of each other, andJudge Owen's house might have escaped a very early visit destined towork important changes in the relations of residents and visitors. Thepuissant and pompous Judge had effected two _coups d'etat_ within asmany days. The one had driven Aunt Martha fairly over into the ranks ofthe enemy: had the second introduced Joe Harris, an electric wire fullcharged with destruction, into the immediate vicinity of his domesticmagazine?
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