“Pop says my mother was pretty—awful pretty. I never seen her, ’cept in her picture. Pop’s got it with all gold on the edges of the box and a cover thet goes ‘snap’ when he shets it.”
“Yes,” replied David absently.
He was thinking of the pale beauty of another and older girl, a tall, slender woman, whose every feature bespoke ancestral breeding. He could not imagine her as a part of this picture, with its squalid setting, nor even as a part of the splendid vista of glistening spring foliage sprinkled upon the background of the hillside conifers that climbed the height of land opposite. Palms and roses, the heavy warm air of the conservatory, sensuous, soothing, enervating.... Wallie Bascomb’s sister ... Elizabeth Bascomb. “Well, it had been a mistake.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Bascomb senior will sit up straight when I name our price,” he muttered. “Strange how this thing has worked out ... and Bessie won’t understand....”
Smoke, nuzzling his hand, recalled him to his surroundings. He did not realize that he had been speaking, but Swickey sat with eyes intently fixed on his face.
“I thought—” he began.
“I unhitched the chain when you was talkin’ to yourself like Pop does,” explained Swickey.
David stooped and patted the dog, who jumped from him to Swickey and back again, overjoyed and impartially affectionate.
“Be careful not to let him out alone,” said David. “Smoke isn’t popular with the men.”
“Pop says they’ll be”—(“There’ll be,” corrected David)—“there’ll be suthin’ doin’ if any of the crew tetches Smoke!”
“Well, you and I will look after him for a while, Swickey. Then no one will touch him.”