"Here comes somebody," said Vincent and turned his quick eyes toward the
door, with an eager expression of attention. He really must have been
stumped by something in the room, thought Mr. Welles, and meant to
figure it out from the owners of the house themselves.
The tall, quiet-looking lady with the long dark eyes, who now came in
alone, excusing herself for keeping them waiting, must of course be Mrs.
Crittenden, Mr. Welles knew. He wished he could get to his feet as
Vincent did, looking as though he had got there by a bound or a spring
and were ready for another. He lifted himself out of his arm-chair with
a heaviness he knew seemed all the heavier by contrast, took the slim
hand Mrs. Crittenden offered him, looked at her as hard as he dared, and
sank again into the arm-chair, as she motioned him to do. He had had a
long experience in judging people quickly by the expression of their
faces, and in that short length of time he had decided thankfully that
he was really, just as he had hoped, going to like his new neighbor as
much as all the rest of it. He gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she
might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind
Vincent. Sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently
Mrs. Crittenden was. He observed that as usual Vincent had cut in ahead
of everybody else, had mentioned their names, both of them, and was
talking with that . . . well, the way he did, which people either liked
very much or couldn't abide. He looked at Vincent as he talked. He was
not a great talker himself, which gave him a great deal of practice in
watching people who did. He often felt that he saw more than he heard,
so much more did people's faces express than their words.
He noticed that the younger man was smiling a good deal, showing those
fine teeth of his, and he had one of those instantaneously-gone,
flash-light reminiscences of elderly people, . . . the day when Mr. Marsh
had been called away from the office and had asked him to go with little
Vincent to keep an appointment with the dentist. Heavens! How the kid
had roared and kicked! And now he sat there, smiling, "making a call,"
probably with that very filling in his tooth, grown-up, not even so very
young any more, with a little gray in his thick hair, what people often
called a good-looking man. How life did run between your fingers! Well,
he would close his hand tight upon what was left to him. He noticed
further that as Vincent talked, his eyes fixed on his interlocutor, his
vigorous hands caressed with a slow circular motion the rounded arms of
his chair. "What a three-ringed circus that fellow is," he thought. "I
bet that the lady thinks he hasn't another idea in his head but
introducing an old friend, and all the time he's taking her in, every
inch of her, and three to one, what he'll talk about most afterwards is
the smooth hard feeling of those polished arm-chairs." Vincent was
saying, ". . . and so, we heard in a round-about way too long to bother
you with, about the small old house next door being for sale, and how
very quiet and peaceful a spot this is, and the Company bought it for
Mr. Welles for a permanent home, now he has retired."