“I dare say!” laughed the Captain. “The old ones always think the young ones have a lot to learn—and they have, sir, they have! But it’s of another sort than we can teach them, I reckon.” He pushed back his chair. “We’ll smoke on the piazza, sir—the ladies don’t object.”
As they passed out, a visitor was just ascending the steps. Miss Carrington gave a smothered exclamation and went forward.
“How do you do, Miss Erskine!” she said.
“How do you do, my dear!” returned Miss Erskine, “and Mrs. Carrington—and the dear Captain, too.—I’m charmed to find you all at home.”
She spoke with an affected drawl that would have been amusing in a handsome woman, but was absurdly ridiculous in one with her figure and unattractive face.
She turned expectantly toward Croyden, and Miss Carrington presented him.
“So this is the new owner of Clarendon,” she 74 gurgled with an ‘a’ so broad it impeded her speech. “You have kept us waiting a long time, Mr. Croyden. We began to think you a myth.”
“I’m afraid you will find me a very husky myth,” Croyden answered.
“‘Husky’ is scarcely the correct word, Mr. Croyden; animated would be better, I think. We scholars, you know, do not like to hear a word used in a perverted sense.”
She waddled to a chair and settled into it. Croyden shot an amused glance toward Miss Carrington, and received one in reply.