A film seemed to come over Cardington's blue eyes, just the suggestion of a veil of secrecy.
"Yes—yes—if you hadn't made other plans, you know. But you must go down there some winter, you must indeed. It's really a most charming place."
"Well," Leigh said, rising and taking up his bundles, "give the bishop and Miss Wycliffe my regards."
"I will," Cardington promised. "Perhaps they will return with me. I 'll take your excellent pipe along to smoke on the Gulf Stream and among the lilies. Good-bye!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE PRESIDENT TAKES A HAND
One evening late in January, Leigh entered Cardington's room with his post-prandial pipe still burning.
"What do you say," he demanded, "to going down to the opera house to hear the President of the United States speak? Here I 've been shut up all day, and forgot what was going on till I picked up the paper just now. I'm ripe for some excitement, the mood which in my undergraduate days would have tempted me to go out and paint the town." He threw himself into a chair, looked about with a sense of being at home, and passed his fingers wearily through the disordered masses of his hair.
The other looked at him attentively. "You make a great mistake," he remarked, "in allowing yourself to get out of condition. With a reasonable regard to the laws of health, you could keep yourself looking like the discus-thrower, thinly disguised in modern habiliments." He spoke like an impersonal judge, who appreciates the excellence of a type and wishes to see it maintained.