The painter said: “And you're still in the old place, Mr. Whitwell?”
“Yes, I like my own house. They've wanted me to come up here often enough, but I'm satisfied where I am. It's quiet down there, and, when I get through for the day, I can read. And I like to keep my family together. Cynthy and Frank always sleep at home, and Jombateeste eats with me. You remember Jombateeste?”
Westover had to say that he did not.
“Well, I don't know as you did see him much. He was that Canuck I had helpin' me clear that piece over on Lion's Head for the pulp-mill; pulp-mill went all to thunder, and I never got a cent. And sometimes Jackson comes down with his plantchette, and we have a good time.”
“Jackson still believes in the manifestations?”
“Yes. But he's never developed much himself. He can't seem to do much without the plantchette. We've had up some of them old philosophers lately. We've had up Socrates.”
“Is that so? It must be very interesting.”
Whitwell did not answer, and Westover saw his eye wander. He looked round. Several ladies were coming across the grass toward him from the hotel, lifting their skirts and tiptoeing through the dew. They called to him, “Good-morning, Mr. Whitwell!” and “Are you going up Lion's Head to-day?” and “Don't you think it will rain?”—“Guess not,” said Whitwell, with a fatherly urbanity and an air of amusement at the anxieties of the sex which seemed habitual to him. He waited tranquilly for them to come up, and then asked, with a wave of his hand toward Westover: “Acquainted with Mr. Westover, the attist?” He named each of them, and it would have been no great vanity in Westover to think they had made their little movement across the grass quite as much in the hope of an introduction to him as in the wish to consult Whitwell about his plans.
