alysis he was living until he could get home, and so largely in the
hope of this that his wife at times could scarcely keep him from taking
some step that would decide the matter between Ellen and Breckon at
once. They were tacitly agreed that they were waiting for nothing else,
and, without making their agreement explicit, she was able to quell him
by asking what he expected to do in case there was nothing between them?
Was he going to take the child back to Tuskingum, which was the same
as taking her back to Bittridge? it hurt her to confront him with this
question, and she tried other devices for staying and appeasing him.
She begged him now, seeing Boyne so forlorn, and hanging about the hotel
alone, or moping over those ridiculous books of his, to go off with the
boy somewhere and see the interesting places within such easy reach,
like Leyden and Delft if he cared nothing for the place where William
the Silent was shot, he ought to see the place that the Pilgrims started
from. She had counted upon doing those places herself, with her husband,
and it was in a sacrifice of her ideal that she now urged him to go
with Boyne. But her preoccupation with Ellen's affair forbade her
self-abandon to those high historical interests to which she urged his
devotion. She might have gone with him and Boyne, but then she must have
left the larger half of her divided mind with Ellen, not to speak of
Lottie, who refused to be a party to any such excursion. Mrs. Kenton
felt the disappointment and grieved at it, but not without hope of
repairing it later, and she did not cease from entreating the judge to
do what he could at once towards fulfilling the desires she postponed.
Once she prevailed with him, and really got him and Boyne off for a
day, but they came back early, with signs of having bored each other
intolerably, and after that it was Boyne, as much as his father, who
relucted from joint expeditions. Boyne did not so much object to going
alone, and his father said it was best to let him, though his mother
had her fears for her youngest. He spent a good deal of his time on the
trams between Scheveningen and The Hague, and he was understood to have
explored the capital pretty thoroughly. In fact, he did go about with a
valet de place, whom he got at a cheap rate, and with whom he conversed
upon the state of the country and its political affairs. The valet said
that the only enemy that Holland could fear was Germany, but an invasio