Honduras drove
her to the station the next morning; and, three days later, deposited
James Polder on the worn stone threshold under the climbing rose.
After dinner the younger man faced him squarely across the apricot glow
of the lamp in the middle room. "This is the third time I've come here
without an invitation from you," he said directly. "It was Mariana this
last. I shut my mouth on what I'd once have crammed down your throat,
and came like any puppy. It wasn't on account of my health, there are
miles of quiet country; it wasn't--" he hesitated, then went
on--"altogether because of Mariana. I wanted to watch you closer; I want
to find out what you are like inside, so I might understand some--some
other things better. I can get out if it's a rank failure."
Howat issued a polite, general dissent. "Now, right there," Polder
stated; "you don't want me; you'd rather I was a thousand miles away,
dead. Well--why don't you say so?" He had not the least conception of a
decent reticence of address, Howat Penny thought, resentfully, at the
discomfort aroused by the young man's sharp attack.
"Certain amenities," he observed coldly, "have been accepted as
desirable, as obligations for--" he hesitated, casting about for a
phrase that would not too conspicuously exclude James Polder.
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