And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment
passed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great
for her station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad."
"Am I not thy friend, Ralph?" he asked with smiling eyes.
"I have thought so at times," I answered.
"My friend's honor is my honor," he went on. "Where his lips are
sealed mine open not. Art content?"
"Content," I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me.
We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he
entered his barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His
rowers cast loose from the piles, and the black water slowly
widened between us. From over my shoulder came a sudden bright
gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress
Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the
many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my
wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair,
with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the
same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him
draw his breath.
"Ralph Percy, thou art the very button upon the cap of Fortune," he
said.
To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to
him, I presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit
room and its resplendent pearl.
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