Caleb took the letter mechanically, looked it over slowly, noted its Stonington postmark, and, handing it back, answered calmly, “Better leave ’em down to Cap’n Joe’s, Bert.”
CHAPTER XV—A NARROW PATH
When Sanford, after dining, rang her bell, Mrs. Leroy was seated on the veranda that overlooked the garden,—a wide and inviting veranda, always carpeted in summer with mats and rugs, and made comfortable with cane chairs and straw divans that were softened into luxurious delights by silk cushions. During the day the sunshine filtered its way between the thickly matted vines, lying in patterns on the floor, or was held in check by thin Venetian blinds. At night the light of a huge eight-sided lantern festooned with tassels shed its glow through screens of colored gauze.
Mrs. Leroy was dressed in a simple gown of white crêpe, which clung and wrinkled about her slight figure, leaving her neck and arms bare. On a low table beside her rested a silver tray with a slender-shaped coffee-pot and tiny egg-shell cups and saucers.
She looked up at him, smiling, as he pushed aside the curtains. “Two lumps, Henry?” she called, holding the sugar-tongs in her hand. Then, as the light of the lantern fell upon his face, she exclaimed, “Why, what’s the matter? You are worried: is there fresh trouble at the Ledge?” and she rose from her chair.
“No; only Carleton,” he replied, looking down at her. “He holds on to that certificate, and I can get no money until he gives it up; yet I have raised the concrete six inches to please him. I wired Captain Joe yesterday to see him at once and to get his answer,—yes or no. What do you suppose he replied? ‘Tell him he don’t own the earth. I’ll sign it when I get to it.’ Not another word, nor would he give any reason for not signing it.”
“Why don’t you appeal to the Board? General Barton would not see you suffer an unjust delay. I’ll write him myself,” she said, sitting bolt upright on the divan.
Sanford smiled. Her rising anger soothed him as flattery might have done at another time. He felt in it a proof of how close to her heart she really held his interests and his happiness.
“That would only prolong the agony, and might lose us the season’s work. The Board is always fair and honest, only it takes so long for it to move.” As he spoke he piled the cushions high behind her head, and drew a low chair opposite to her. “It’s torture to a contractor who is behind time,” he continued, flecking the ashes of his cigar into his saucer. “It means getting all tangled up in the red tape of a government bureau. I must give up my holiday and find Carleton; there is nothing else to be done now. I leave on the early train to-morrow. But what a rest this is!” he exclaimed, breaking into the strained impetuosity of his own tones with a long-drawn sigh of relief, as he looked about the dimly lighted veranda. “Nothing like it anywhere.”
As he spoke his eyes wandered over her dainty figure, half reclining before him,—the delicately modeled waist, the shapely wrists, and the tiny slippers peeping beneath the edge of her dress that fell in folds to the floor. “Another new gown, I see?”