"And she thinks Torso is second-class?" Lane inquired.
"She would like to get away, I think. But they are poor, I suppose. Her clothes look as if she knew what to wear,—pretty. She says there are some interesting people here when you find them out…. Who is Mr. Darnell? A lawyer."
"Tom Darnell? He's one of the local counsel for the road,—a Kentuckian, politician, talkative sort of fellow, very popular with all sorts. What did Mrs. Falkner have to say about Tom Darnell?"
"She told me all about his marriage,—how he ran away with his wife from a boarding-school in Kentucky—and was chased by her father and brothers, and they fired at him. A regular Southern scrimmage! But they got across the river and were married."
"Sounds like Darnell," Lane remarked contemptuously.
"It sounds exciting!" his wife said.
The story, as related by the vivacious Mrs. Falkner, had stirred Isabelle's curiosity; she could not dismiss this Kentucky politician as curtly as her husband had disposed of him….
They were both wilted by the heat, and after dinner they strolled out into the garden to get more air, walking leisurely arm in arm, while Lane smoked his first, cigar. Having finished the gossip for the day, they had little to say to each other,—Isabelle wondered that it should be so little! Two months of daily companionship after the intimate weeks of their engagement had exhausted the topics for mere talk which they had in common. To-night, as Lane wished to learn the latest news from the wreck, they went into the town, crossing on their way to the office the court-house square. This was the centre of old Torso, where the distillery aristocracy still lived in high, broad-eaved houses of the same pattern as the Colonel's city mansion. In one of these, which needed painting and was generally neglected, the long front windows on the first story were open, revealing a group of people sitting around a supper-table.
"There's Mrs. Falkner," Isabelle remarked; "the one at the end of the table, in white. This must be where they live."
Lane looked at the house with a mental estimate of the rent.