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Nimick's presence did not usually minister to repose; but the Governor's serenity was too deep to be easily disturbed, and he felt the calmness of a man who knows there is a mosquito in the room, but has drawn the netting close about his head.
What did the facts matter? He had only to put his memories together they led him straight to the truth. Every incident of the day seemed to point a leering finger in the same direction, from Mrs. Nimick's allusion to the imported damask curtains to Gregg's confident appeal for rehabilitation.
The ashes dropped from his cigar, scattering a white trail across the carpet which had excited Mrs. Nimick's envy. "The office is in my gift. If I didn't sell it, who did?" he demanded. Shackwell laid a hand on his arm. "For heaven's sake, John " "Who did, who did?" the Governor violently repeated. The two men faced each other in the closely curtained silence of the dim luxurious room.
It made him all the sorrier for his sister to know that her envy did not penetrate to the essence of his happiness, but lingered on those external signs of well-being which counted for so little in the sum total of his advantages. Poor Mrs. Nimick's life seemed doubly thin and mean when one remembered that, beneath its shabby surface, there were no compensating riches of the spirit.
Nimick's felicitations were always couched in the conditional, with a side-glance at dark contingencies, and the Governor, smiling at the familiar construction, returned cheerfully: "I don't see why any one should want to deprive you of that privilege." "They couldn't they couldn't " Mrs. Nimick heroically affirmed.
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