"That's the stuff, set it here!" The cards were shuffled away for the bottle and glasses. The window curtains were drawn tightly, the door was closed and the portière hung in stiff folds across it; the coal snapped in the grate and the young men settled down for the evening.
But Frances was not winding up her own affairs so nearly to her mind. The professor had lain down his book as soon as the guest departed. "Daughter," he began uneasily, "I didn't know you knew Mr. Lawson."
Frances looked at him in astonishment. "Why—how—" she stammered.
"Somehow, he's different from most of the students here," her father went on, putting his half-framed opinion into words; "he's older and he looks a man of the world, and he's not over studious," he added a little sarcastically.
Frances after her first start was listening quietly to his broken speech.
"These older men," the professor went on, "if they don't come for good hard work, they—they are the most troublesome kind we have to deal with. The young fellows, now, they have their faults, but they are the faults of youth. When these older men graft their knowledge of the world to their students' folly—well—well—" he was silent for a moment.
Frances, without the slightest wish to defend the absent, sat silent likewise.
"He's rich too; his father owns immense lumber tracts in Oregon, and his people live in great style, and—I scarcely know—He's in none of my classes. But, somehow, he doesn't seem— I wonder you invited him."
"I didn't."
"Didn't! Why—"