"Same as gemmen allways does in a club I reckon; smokes and talks and plays cards and mixes juleps."
"Well, do they generally bring their guests here tied hand and foot?"
Aunt Liza dissolved into noiseless fat laughter. "No suh! No suh! That's somepin new, that is!"
"Well, what do you think of it?"
"Laws! I never thinks, suh. I leaves that to the white folks. I jus' looks on and 'preciates things!"
Evan was sure now that she was simply using her simplicity as a cover. In such a contest he could only come off second best, so he fell silent. He was anxious to get her out of the room now that he might get a glimpse out of the window.
"Somebody said something about dinner," he said. "How about it?"
"Ready d'rectly, suh. I'll go look at it."
She went out. The room had but the one door which she locked after her. After a series of struggles Evan succeeded in getting to his knees. If this sounds easy let the doubter have his hands tied behind him, and his ankles tied together, and try it. This brought his head above the level of the window-sill, but the view out the window scarcely repaid him for his trouble. It was much what one might have expected from the condition of the house, a door-yard grown high with grass and weeds, a clump of tiger-lilies, some aged lilac bushes, a few rotten palings marking the line where a fence had run.
Beyond the fence was the road, only a slight depression now in the expanse of weeds. The automobile that had brought Evan was standing there. It was a shabby little landaulet with the top up. It looked like a taxi-cab but carried no meter. Beyond the line of the road the view was shut off by second-growth woods, with a larger tree rising here and there.