“I’ll be afraid to see Edna soon. She’s going to be such a beauty that the only safety’s in flight.”
The mother was even more pleased at this.
“You’re right,” she said, nodding at him with a grave eye; “Edna’s a beauty. Where she gets it from is what stumps me. My glass tells me it’s not from her mommer, and my memory tells me it’s not from her popper.”
“There’s a man on your paper called Essex,” said Barron, who was not one to beat about the bush; “what sort of a fellow is he, Mrs. Willers?”
“A bad sort, I’m inclined to think. Why do you ask?”
“He was at the house the other afternoon, calling on Miss Moreau. I met him in the hall. I didn’t cotton to him at all. She told me he was a friend of yours and a writer on The Trumpet.”
He looked at her inquiringly, hardly liking to go farther till she gave him some encouragement. He noticed that her expression had changed and that she was eying him with a hard, considering attention.
“Why didn’t you like his looks?” she said.
“Well, I’ve seen men like that before—at the mines. Good-looking chaps, who are sort of imitation gentlemen, and try to make you take the imitation for the real thing by putting on dog. I didn’t like his style, anyhow, and I don’t think she does, either.”
“You’re right about that,” said Mrs. Willers; “do you know what he was there for?”