Judgment call

Mrs. George Swinton,by John Singer Sargent
(Art Institute of Chicago)

     My wife works in the Loop on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and usually comes down to the kitchen to get her lunch together about 7:30 a.m., while I'm sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and scanning the papers — okay, lingering, pretending to read the paper and drink coffee, actually there simply to enjoy the pleasure of her company before she vanishes for the next 10 and a half hours.
    On this particular day, this past week, she was wearing white linen pants, a robin's egg blue knit top, and a sort of a shirt-jacket that brought the blue and the white together. A very soigné ensemble. I thought of taking a photo; then thought better, and didn't. A private person, she.
    As much as I like to use the word soigné — French, for "elegant, put together" — I did not say that. What I did say was, "You look very summery ..."
      The next thought came to me, and I resisted it for a fraction of a second, then gave in to the inevitable, adding, "...if you will forgive a summery judgement."

      We both froze a moment. 
     A pun, for you non-lawyers, on "summary judgement," when a party asks a judge to, in essence, decide a case before it goes to trial, based on some aspect of the facts and the law. 
     Yes, she groaned. But it was a good groan. A groan of appreciation. Or so I tell myself.