"You carry it," he said. "Maud always makes a fuss when I bring bundles home."
"Who is Maud?" asked Evan.
"My son's wife; a great society woman."
"You want me to come in with you then?" said Evan.
"Yes, you're a good boy. I want to give you something."
Evan was surprised. "A dime, or even a quarter!" he thought, smiling to himself. Nevertheless he went willingly enough, filled with a great curiosity.
The house was a showy affair of grey sandstone built in the style of a French château. But Evan's trained eye perceived many lapses of taste; it was not even well-built; the window-casings were of wood when they should have been of stone; the side of the house, plainly visible from the street, was of common yellow brick. It looked like a jerry-built palace for a parvenu. Evan wondered how the old money-lender had come to be stuck with it.
"My son's house," said Deaves with a queer mixture of pride and scorn. "I live with them. Sinful waste!"
He avoided the front door with its grand grill of polished steel. The street widening had shorn off the original areaway of the house, and the service entrance was now a mere slit in the sidewalk with a steep stair swallowed up in blackness below. Down this stair old Simeon Deaves made his way. Evan followed, grinning to himself. It was certainly an odd way for a man to enter his own home.
"We won't meet Maud this way," Deaves said over his shoulder.