“You don't understand,” she said with a small sob, and then another.
“Maybe not. But I think you had other reasons.”
They looked in through the tall library window, and saw Henry Champney sitting alone by his table, the gas jet flaring over him, and his white head dropped over on his hand. Hennion went on: “There's some of this business that it doesn't suit me to argue about or admit. But it occurs to me that”—pointing toward the window—“that may have been a reason.”
“You do understand that,” she said, and they went in together.
CHAPTER XVIII—T. M. SECOR—HENNION—CAMILLA
PORT ARGENT had not reached such a stage of civic life that its wealthy citizens went out into the neighbouring country by reason of warm weather. Besides, the neighbouring country is flat, and the summer heats seem to lie on it level and undisturbed. There straight roads meet at right angles, one cornfield is like another, and one stumpy pasture differs little from the next. It is fertile, and looks democratic, not to say socialistic, in its monotonous similarity, but it does not look like a landscape apt to draw out to it the civilian, as the hill country draws out its civilians, with the thirst of the hill people for their falling brooks and stormy mountains, the wood thrushes and the columbine. An “observer of decades” might have remarked that Herbert Avenue was the pleasantest spot he had seen within a hundred miles of Port Argent, and that the civic life seemed to be peculiarly victorious at that point. There was a village air about the Avenue, only on a statelier scale, but with the same space and greenness and quiet. One of the largest houses was T. M. Secor's.
Secor sat on his broad verandah in the early twilight. He stirred heavily in his chair, and stretched out a great hand thick and hard, as Hennion came up the steps.
“Glad to see you, sonny,” Secor said. “Stick up your feet and have a drink.”