Just then the housekeeper appeared and dropped a courtesy as she came in at the library doorway.
“Oh, Mrs. Lukens,” said Mrs. De Witt, “I wish you’d have luncheon promptly at one o’clock. Mr. Gilderman wants to go back to town on the half-past two o’clock train.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Lukens, dropping another courtesy, and again Mr. Marcy smiled with a flash of his beautiful white teeth.
“I’d like to begin by taking you up-stairs, Mr. De Witt,” he said.
“Very well,” said De Witt. And then the whole party moved across the hall to begin the inspection of the house.
Gilderman rode back to the station behind the same smart horse, and with the same groom that had brought him over. The groom drove the horse very much faster than Tom De Witt had done. As they spun along the level stretch of road, Gilderman put up his hand, holding his hat against the wind, the smoke from his cigar blowing back in his eyes.
The groom checked the horse to a walk as they ascended the steep hill beyond which lay the town. “By-the-way, John,” said Gilderman, suddenly, “there seems to be a good deal of interest hereabouts about that Man they’re talking so much of just now.”
The groom glanced quickly, almost suspiciously, at Gilderman, and then back at the horse again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “They do be running after Him a lot, one way and another, about here.”
“What do you think about Him yourself, John?” said Gilderman, curiously.