[Gutenberg 42740] • Find the Woman

Her host met her at the top of a flight of stairs. His great hands enveloped hers. They drew her toward him. Before she knew it, he had kissed her. And Clancy did the thing that made two admiring acquaintances adoring friends for life. She kissed the judge warmly in return. For Mrs. Walbrough was standing a trifle behind the judge, although Clancy hadn't seen her. She came forward now, wringing her hands with a would-be pathetic expression on her face.

"I can't trust the man a moment, Miss Deane. And, to make it worse, I find that I can't trust you." She drew Clancy close to her. She, too, kissed the girl, and found the kiss returned.

"Why shouldn't I kiss him?" demanded Clancy. "He brags so much, I wanted to find out if he knew how."

"Does he?" asked Mrs. Walbrough.

Clancy's eyes twinkled.

"Well, you see," she answered, "I'm not really a judge myself."

The judge exploded in a huge guffaw.

"With eyes like hers, Irish gray eyes, why shouldn't she have wit? Tell me, Miss Deane: You have Irish blood in you?"

"My first name is Clancy," replied the girl.

"Enough," said the judge. He heaved a great mock sigh. "Now, if only Martha would catch a convenient cold or headache——"

Mrs. Walbrough tapped him with an ostrich-plume fan.

"Tom, Miss Deane is our guest. Please stop annoying her. The suggestion that she should spend an hour alone with you must be horrifying to any young lady. Come."

The judge gave an arm to each of the ladies, and they walked, with much stateliness on the part of the judge, to a dining-room that opened off the landing at the head of the stairs.

Clancy felt happier than she had deemed it possible for her to be. Perhaps the judge's humor was a little crude; perhaps it was even stupid. But to be with two people who so evidently liked her, and who so patently adored each other, was to partake of their happiness, no matter how desperate her own fears.

Dinner passed quickly enough, and Clancy found out that she had an appetite, after all. The judge and his wife showed no undue interest in her. Clancy would have sworn that they knew nothing about her when dinner ended and they started for the opera. She did not know that, before he went upon the bench, Judge Walbrough had been the cleverest cross-examiner at the bar, and that all through dinner he had been verifying his first estimate of her character. For the Walbroughs, as she was later to learn, did not "pick up" every lovely young female whom they chanced to meet and admire. A happy couple, they still were lonely at times—lonely for the sound of younger voices.

And the significant glance that the judge cast at his wife at the end of the dinner went unnoticed by Clancy. She did not know that they had passed upon her and found her worth while.

And with this friendly couple she heard her first opera. It was "Manon," and Farrar sang. From the beginning to the tragic dénouement, Clancy was held enthralled. She was different from the average country girl who attends the opera. She was not at all interested in the persons, though they were personages, who were in the boxes. She was interested in the singers, and in them only. She had never heard great music before, save from a phonograph. She made a mental vow that she would hear more again—soon.

Find the Woman, to stroll around the town, Open Sesame, Broadway, pleasant greeting, necklaces of pearls and diamonds, smiled tremulously