The Inger stopped with simulated interest. The man—a thin, degenerate creature, with a wrinkled smile—approached him hopefully. Abruptly the Inger’s powerful arm shot out, caught him below the waist, lifted him squirming in the air, and laid him carefully in the gutter.
“What you need is rest,” he said, with perfect gentleness, and left him there.
The hotel where the wedding was to be celebrated had light in every window. Here Bunchy’s preparations had been prodigal. Blankets and skins lined the walls and covered the floor of the office where a fire was roaring and the card tables were in readiness. Shouting and imprecation, chiefly from women, came from the kitchen, where the wedding supper was in preparation. In the hotel desk was Bunchy himself, engaged in somewhat delayed attention to his nails. His hair, still wet from its brushing, ran away from his temples, lifting the corners of his forehead so that it seemed to be smiling. He had a large face, and a little tight mouth, with raw-looking, shiny lips. There was something pathetic in his careful black clothes and his uncomfortable collar and his plaid cravat.
“How much would you sink to back out?” was the Inger’s salutation.
Bunchy grinned sheepishly.
“How much did it cost you?” he inquired.
“Done it for nothing,” the Inger declared. “I ain’t the charmer you are, Bunchy. Never was.”
The groom leaned nearer the light, minutely examining a black, cracked finger.
“She ain’t goin’ to be very much in the way,” said he, confidentially.
“What?” asked the Inger, attentively.