"Oh, he's all right; big and fat and good-natured. A good feller, I should say. Likes automobilin', too, and thinks my car is a winner."
"Married, is he?" says I.
"No; he's a widower. That's a good thing, too."
"Why? What's that got to do with it?"
"A whole lot. If he was married I'd have to take Mrs. P. along on our auto rides; and—let alone the fact that there wouldn't be room—she'd want to talk scenery instead of screens. Women and business don't mix. That's one reason why I've never married."
I couldn't help thinkin' of some of the hints he'd been heavin' at me—the "home" remarks and so on—but I never said nothin'.
This was a Tuesday. And when, on Thursday afternoon, I walked into the store, after havin' had dinner at the Poquit, I found 'Dolph Cahoon—our new clerk I've mentioned already—leanin' graceful and easy over the candy counter and talkin' with a young woman I'd never seen afore. I didn't look at her very close, but I got a sort of general observation as I walked aft to the post-office department; and, sifted down, that observation left me with remembrances of a blue serge jacket and skirt, cut clipper fashion and fittin' as if they was built for the craft that was in 'em; a little blue hat—a real hat; not a velvet tar barrel upside down—with a little white gull's wing on it; brown eyes and brown hair, and a white collar and shirtwaist. I didn't stop to hail, you understand; but I judged that the stranger's home port wa'n't Ostable or any of the Cape towns. Ostable outfitters don't rig 'em that way.
I come in the side door, and 'Dolph or his customer didn't notice me. The young woman was lookin' into the showcase; and, as for 'Dolph, he wouldn't have noticed the President of the United States just then. He was twirlin' his red mustache with the hand that had the rock-crystal ring on the finger of it, and his talk was a sort of sugared purr—at least, that's the nighest description of it that I can get at.
I set down in my chair at the postmaster's desk and begun to turn over some papers. Mary had gone to dinner and Jim Henry was away in his auto; so I was all alone. I turned over the papers, but I couldn't get my mind on 'em—the talk outside was too prevailin', so to speak.
'Dolph was doin' the heft of it. The young woman's answers was short and not too interested. 'Dolph was remarkin' about the weather and what a dull winter we'd had, and how glad he'd be when spring really set in and the summer folks begun to come—and so on.