Still the woman made no answer, but her very silence gave encouragement to the wooer.
"I'm through with fishin' an' lonely livin', whether or no, Sarah. All these years that I've hung around alone, it hain't cost me much to live, an' I've got a right smart o' money saved up. Ye know, this hotel ain't big 'nough fer all the Yankees that'd like to stop on the way up an' down offen their yachts. I was a-thinkin' las' night what a thing it'd be for me an' you to be real partners, an' let me spend some o' the savin's to double the size o' the hotel, an' hire 'nough help to take the strain offen you in runnin' o' it."
The mingling of romance and practical worldly advantage won Miss Porter's consent to the plea of her suitor. Perhaps, either would have sufficed of itself; certainly, together, they were irresistible. Ichabod was all a-tremble with happiness and pride, as the spinster coyly offered her cheek to his kiss.
He started guiltily a moment later, as a huge negress appeared in the doorway, and bawled at him:
"Mr. Ichabod, the 'phone is a-callin' yoh-all."
CHAPTER XIX
Bottled Up
Captain Ichabod Jones stepped briskly into Squire Chadwick's courtroom—which was otherwise the parlor in his modest home. Van Dusen, that very shrewd detective, observed that the old man trod with a jauntier step than heretofore, and that his expression was one of smug complacency. He wondered a little as to just what might have occurred to make this change so swiftly. He could not guess that a romance of twenty years was concerned, but his observant eyes told him that in some mysterious fashion this aged native had found a new happiness in life within the hour.
That happiness indeed was a thing assured in the opinion of Captain Ichabod. The smile that Van Dusen found so hard to interpret was the outward expression of great things within the old man's soul. He had loved his loneliness. Now, he was rejoicing that no more would his life be lonely! The gulls and fish-hawks and sand-crabs could take possession of the old shack that had sheltered him for years. He cared nothing for that. Shortly, he would be known as Ichabod Jones, proprietor of a fashionable tourist hotel. He chuckled, and his lips moved into the travesty of a kiss.