The Brimming Cup

"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."