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It was Tappingham who proposed Miss Betty Carewe. "I know Tom Vanrevel will understand nay, I know he's man enough to join us," said Marsh as he rose.
There was a fiery red spot out at sea, where the sun had set, and, above it, over a chill, clear, saffron sky, were reefs of purple-black clouds. The river, below the Carewe homestead, was livid. Beyond it, the sea was dark and brooding. It was an evening to make most people shiver and forebode an early winter; but Thyra loved it, as she loved all stern, harshly beautiful things.
No one did doubt it. What reason had Mr. Carewe to injure Crailey Gray? Only five in Rouen knew the truth; for Nelson had gone with his master, and, except Mamie, the other servants of the Carewe household had been among the crowd in front of the Rouen House when the shot was fired. So the story went over the town: how Crailey had called to say good-by to Mrs. Tanberry; how Mr.
Miss Carewe honored each of the lorn three with few minutes of gravity; but the gentle refusal prevented never a swain from being as truly her follower as before; not that she resorted to the poor device of half-dismissal, the every-day method of the school-girl flirt, who thus keeps the lads in dalliance, but because, even for the rejected, it was a delight to be near her.
He was ragged, tanned, dusty, neither shoes nor coat trammelling his independence; and he had evidently entered the garden through the gap in the hedge. "I thought you spoke to me?" he said, inquiringly. "I didn't see you," she returned. "What is it?" "You Miss Carewe?" he asked; but before she could answer he said, reassuringly, "Why, of course you are!
Vanrevel swung his line of bucketeers round to throw water, not upon the flames, but upon the ladder-men. Miss Carewe stood in the crowd upon the opposite side of the broad street. Even there her cheeks were uncomfortably hot, and sometimes she had to brush a spark from her shoulder, though she was too much excited to mind this.
The morning sun rose upon a fair world, gay with bird-chatterings from the big trees of the Carewe place, and pleasant with the odors of Miss Betty's garden, and Crailey, lying upon the bed of the man who had shot him, hearkened and smiled good-by to the summer he loved; and, when the day broke, asked that the bed be moved so that he might lie close by the window.
Crailey said Carewe could better afford to lose his shanties than the overworked Department its first chance to look beautiful and earnest. Tom asked him why he didn't send for a fiddle," Marsh finished with a chuckle. "Carewe might afford to lose a little, even a warehouse or two, if only out of what he's taken from Crailey and the rest of us, these three years!" "Taken from Vanrevel, you mean.
It was noticed, also, that there were five other initiates to this masonry: Eugene Madrillon, the elder Chenoweth, General Trumble, Tappingham Marsh, and Jefferson Bareaud. Thus, on the afternoon following Miss Betty's introduction to Rouen's favorite sons and daughters, Mr. Carewe, driving down Main Street, held up one forefinger to Madrillon as he saw the young man turning in at the club.
He brought brandy and water from the sideboard with no stinting hand, and within ten minutes Mr. Carewe was in his accustomed seat, competent to finish his breakfast. In solitude, however, he sat, and no one guessed his thoughts. For Miss Betty had fled to her own room, and had bolted the door. She lay upon the bed, shuddering and shivering with nausea and cold, though the day was warm.
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