"A fine figger," he told himself.
Later, Mariana and James Polder had gone out on the porch, he faced with
reluctance the task of furnishing her with entertainment; but, to his
extreme relief, she procured a leather portfolio, and addressed herself
to a sheaf of papers. But that, in itself, was a peculiar way for a
young woman to spend an evening. She would have done it, he felt, if he
had been half his actual age. God help the man with a fancy for her!
Charming visions were woven on his memory from the fading skeins of the
past--a ride in a dilapidated, public fiacre after a masked ball in
Paris ... at dawn. Confetti tangled in coppery hair, a wilful mouth,
fragrantly painted, and phantomlike swans on a black lake. His silk hat
had been telescoped in the process of smacking a Frenchman's eye.
Perhaps, they had told each other, there would be cards later in the
day, an affair of honour. He forgot what, exactly, had happened; but
there had been no duel.
He looked up with a sudden concern, as if his thoughts might have been
clear to Eliza Provost, in irreproachable evening dress and shell rimmed
glasses, intent on statistical pages. Mariana and James Polder appeared;
the former, Howat Penny thought, disturbed. Polder's intense countenance
was sombre, his brow corrugated.
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