Croyden nodded—then looked across; and both men raised their hats and bowed.
“And how many married?” Macloud queried.
“Several—but you let them alone—it’s not fashionable here, as yet, for a pretty married woman to have an affair. She loves her husband, or acts it, at least. They’re neither prudes nor prigs, but they are not that.”
“So far as you know!” laughed Macloud. “But my experience has been that the pretty married woman who won’t flirt, if occasion offers where there is no danger of being compromised, is a pretty scarce article. However, Hampton may be an exception.”
“You’re too cynical,” said Croyden. “We turn in here—this is Clarendon.”
“Why! you beggar!” Macloud exclaimed. 95 “I’ve been sympathizing with you, because I thought you were living in a shack-of-a-place—and, behold!”
“Yes, it is not bad,” said Croyden. “I’ve no ground for complaint, on that head. I can, at least, be comfortable here. It’s not bad inside, either.”
That evening, after dinner, when the two men were sitting in the library while a short-lived thunder storm raged outside, Macloud, after a long break in the conversation—which is the surest sign of camaraderie among men—observed, apropos of nothing except the talk of the morning:
“Lord! man, you’ve got no kick coming!”
“Who said I had?” Croyden demanded.