From where he stood in the doorway, Adam could see the dim figure of the Interpreter's companion at the farther end of the porch. "Who is that with you?" demanded the Mill owner suspiciously.
"Only Billy Rand," replied the man in the wheel chair reassuringly.
"Won't you sit down?"
Before accepting the invitation to be seated, Adam advanced upon the man in the wheel chair with outstretched hands, as if eagerly meeting a most intimate friend whose regard he prized above all other relationships of life. Seizing the Interpreter's hand, he clung to it in an excess of cordiality, all the while pouring out between short laughs of pretended gladness, a hurried volume of excuses for having so long delayed calling upon his dear old friend. To any one at all acquainted with the man, it would have been very clear that he wanted something.
"It seems ages since I saw you," he declared, as he seated himself at last. "It's a shame for a man to neglect an old friend as I have neglected you."
The Interpreter returned, calmly, "The last time you called was just before your son enlisted. You wanted me to help you keep him at home."
It was too dark to see Adam's face. "So it was, I remember now." There was a suggestion of nervousness in the laugh which followed his words.
"The time before that," said the Interpreter evenly, "was when Tom Blair was killed in the Mill. You wanted me to persuade Tom's widow that you were in no way liable for the accident."
The barometer of Adam's friendliness dropped another degree. "That affair was finally settled at five thousand," he said, and this time he did not laugh.
"The time before that," said the Interpreter, "was when your old friend Peter Martin's wife died. You wanted me to explain to the workmen who attended the funeral how necessary it was for you to take that hour out of their pay checks."
"You have a good memory," said the visitor, coldly, as he stirred uneasily in the dusk.