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Taou Taou Yuen hadn't liked him either: when, after the longest time, he had gone, she replied to a short comment from her, Sidsall's, father: "Rotten wood cannot be carved." Some one else had mentioned opium. She had intended to ask more particularly about this, but it slipped from her mind. She remembered that her grandfather made one of his familiar exclamations peppered with an appalling word.
Rhoda wondered what nonsense Roger Brevard was repeating; Sidsall's face was hidden from view. But then Roger was always like that, his manner was never at a loss for the appropriate gesture. He had a great many points in common with her, she thought; neither had been born in Salem, and his rightful setting was in the best metropolitan drawing-rooms.
"I forget nothing," Hodie stoutly maintained; "I'll witness before anyone." She settled the flounces of Sidsall's skirt with a deft hand. Walking toward the Saltonstones' for tea, with a mulberry silk parasol casting a shifting glow on her expanse of clear madras, Sidsall wondered at the sudden change of almost all her interests and preoccupations.
Later, her fingers picking a precarious way through bass and treble, she heard Sidsall's voice at the door; the latter was joined by their mother, and they went out to the clatter of hoofs, the thin jingle of harness chains, where the barouche waited for them in the street. Once Camilla obtruded into the room.
They were twenty-five more than Sidsall's; yet, he added in self-extenuation, he was not definitely snared in middle age; he was still elastic in body and youthful, but for graying hair, in appearance. His birth was eligible from every social consideration; and, though he was not rich, he had enough independently to assure the safety of his wife's future.
But I can't help it if my cheeks are red and mother won't let me have powder." It was obviously impossible to explain about Hodie and the lacing. "I like it," he insisted. "I'll admit that I am unfashionable there. I think we'll hit on a great deal to share privately." There was a faint patter among the leaves, and a cold drop of rain fell on Sidsall's arm.
Ammidon or a contemplative hour in the garden, usually at dusk. Apparently content with the elaborate rearrangement of her headdress, she sat for long periods, gazing out over Washington Square, idle except for the regular tap of her pipe emptying the ashes of the minute bowl. Yet Sidsall's first interest in her had almost completely shifted to Gerrit Ammidon.
"He did Sidsall, though, as we all remember; didn't he, love?" Sidsall's cheeks turned bright pink. Laurel dispassionately wished that her sister wouldn't make such a show of herself. It was too bad that Sidsall was so so broad and well looking; she was not in the least pale or interesting, and had neither Lacy's Saltonstone's thin gracefulness nor Olive's popular manner.
"You ought to be made to leave the room," William fumed. "That isn't necessary," Rhoda told him. "I am sure Roger understands perfectly how impossible it is. You mustn't be hurt," she turned to him, "if I admit that we have very different plans... at least a man nearer Sidsall's age." The girl lifted a confident face to him. "You want to marry me, don't you?" she asked.
Such a feeling as Sidsall's and his, he repeated from the oppressive expanse of his black walnut bed, was above ordinary precautions and observance. Then, unable to dismiss the thought of how crumpled his trousers would be in the morning, oppressed by the picture of the tumbled garments, he finally rose and, in the dark, relaid them in the familiar smooth array.
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