“A red flag to a bull isn’t in it with Miss Erskine and father,” Miss Carrington observed.
“But I hide it pretty well—while she’s here,” he protested.
“If she’s not here too long—and you can get away, in time.”
When the two men left the Carrington place, 243 darkness had fallen. As they approached Clarendon, the welcoming brightness of a well-lighted house sprang out to greet them. It was Croyden’s one extravagance—to have plenty of illumination. He had always been accustomed to it, and the gloom, at night, of the village residence, bright only in library or living room—with, maybe, a timid taper in the hall—set his nerves on edge. He would have none of it. And Moses, with considerable wonder at, to his mind, the waste of gas, and much grumbling to himself and Josephine, obeyed.
They had finished dinner and were smoking their cigars in the library, when Croyden, suddenly bethinking himself of a matter which he had forgotten, arose and pulled the bell.
“Survent, seh!” said old Mose a moment later from the doorway.
“Moses, who is the best carpenter in town?” Croyden asked.
“Mistah Snyder, seh—he wuz heah dis arfternoon, yo knows, seh!”
“I didn’t know it,” said Croyden.
“Why yo sont ’im, seh.”