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Neckart's sharp, irritable voice jarred somehow on the quiet sunshine. "Yaas. But I lent my boat last week, and this here one's out of repair. Give me more of them nails, David." "The boat could have been mended at night, and ready for use," in the tone which a teacher might use to idle boys.
When I was a young fellow mere bundle of nerves, high-strung, sir high-strung! Ambition, love! Constitution wouldn't stand it! Bit of the steak, John, rare. Joe Rhodes, I said, either come down to the jog-trot level or die. So here I am! Good for forty years yet, please God! When you are my age you may be just what I am, if you choose." Neckart's eye twinkled: "Try the birds, judge."
Ragged patches of clouds were driven down across the tree-tops; the dark blue of the sky had yet a tinge of moist yellow in it after the night's rains; the wind was wet as it blew now and then gustily in Neckart's face. He jumped across a brush hedge overgrown with smilax and blackberry vines, and passed in under the hemlocks. They were dark and still.
It's a trifle, after all," evading Neckart's eye, of which he had read the meaning. "But you are so apt, Jane, to take unreasonable prejudices against people. This is a friend of Will's, whom Judge Rhodes will bring out this evening. And it was your cousin's wish that he should be your friend also adviser, eh? I've no head for business, you know, and you might refer knotty questions to him.
As for the world, there was nothing in it but that boat yonder which shot through the water, and the woman with eager face rowing swiftly toward him. There was not a Wall-street banker or a politician among Neckart's confrères who would not have looked upon him as insane for the moment. This dull wisp of a woman to blot out all business, power, place, from his life?
The dog sat at her feet, his head on her knee, watching her intently. She took her stitches slowly and with care, stopping now and then to put her hand on Bruno's muzzle and nod at him significantly about the fun they were going to have presently. It was a quiet, pretty picture. Now, silence or leisurely calm of any kind was rare in Mr. Neckart's daily life.
He turned to her with one of his rare smiles and an odd break in his controlled voice. "I hold your hand in mine every step of my way." She did not smile in return. She was standing still in the path, as though she had been stopped by a blow. "Honest? I honest?" she said. The dog jumped up on her breast to go on with his romp. She pushed him down, looking straight into Neckart's amazed face.
I have met a few women, of course, beautiful, and with the intellect and wealth which would make them desirable wives; and I have no doubt if I had been differently situated I should have loved and married. But it never cost me a second thought to pass them by." "But this obstacle it may some day be removed?" ventured the captain. Mr. Neckart's features settled into the hard lines again.
Can you tell me anything about him?" "I meet him everywhere," said Neckart. "The old man is failing fast. But he takes life just as he always did like a boy let loose for the holidays." "And his daughter?" "She never comes into town: she is not a woman of society." "I remember the little Swede was no favorite of yours," noticing a certain reserve in Neckart's tone.
She was silent after that, and preoccupied as her admirers had never seen her, and presently, hearing Jane's and Neckart's steps on the path, she rose hastily and bade them good-night. They each shook hands with her, that being one of the sacred rites in the Platonic friendships so much in vogue now-a-days among clever men and women. Mr.
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