“Certainly I’m not now, that’s plain enough, or I’d make King’s Forest sit up and take notice. Well, well, Miss Heathcote, just talk over with your brother what I’ve said to you. A man looks at some things different from a woman. Good-bye, ma’am, good-bye. Looks as if it were clearing.”
As Maclin came upon the piazza he stopped short at the sight of Northrup by the open window. He wasn’t often betrayed into showing surprise, but he was now. He had come hoping to get a glimpse of the stranger; had come to get in an early warning of his power, but he wanted to control conditions.
“Good afternoon,” he muttered. “Looks more like clearing, 63 doesn’t it? Stranger in these parts? I’ve heard of you; haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you.”
Northrup regarded Maclin coolly as one man does another when there is no apparent reason why he should not.
“The clouds do seem lifting. No, I’m not what you might call a stranger in King’s Forest. Some lake, isn’t it, and good woodland?”
“One of the family, eh? Happy to meet you.” Maclin offered a broad, heavy hand. Northrup took it and smiled cordially without speaking. “Staying on some time?”
“I haven’t decided exactly.”
“Come over to the mines and look around. Nothing there as yet but a dump heap, so to speak, but I’m working out a big proposition and while I have to go slow and keep somewhat under cover for a time––I don’t mind showing what can be shown.”
“Thanks,” Northrup nodded, “I’ll get over if I find time. I’m here on business myself and am rather busy in a slow, lazy fashion, but I’ll not forget.”
Maclin put on his hat and turned away. Northrup got an unpleasant impression of the man’s head in the back. It was flat and his neck met it in flabby folds that wrinkled under certain emotions as other men’s foreheads did. The expressive neck was wrinkling now.