The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable air
of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung,
ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to
come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he had
never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of
familiarity. "Who lives there?" he asked abruptly.
"Who lives there? On the left? Why that--that is the Sherwood place,"
Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure of
it, but inclined to think his information correct. Harkless relapsed into
silence.
Meredith's home was a few blocks further up the same street; a capacious
house in the Western fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn,
there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; maples and shrubbery
were everywhere; and here and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy
poplar. It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; and, on the
porch, sheltered from publicity by a multitude of palms and flowering
plants, a white-jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a more
important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed glasses and a crystal pitcher,
against whose sides the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement of
straws.
When they had helped him to an easy chair on the porch, Harkless whistled
luxuriously. "Ah, my bachelor!" he exclaimed, as he selected a straw.
"'Who would fardels bear?'" rejoined Mr. Meredith. Then came to the other
a recollection of an auburn-haired ball player on whom the third strike
had once been called while his eyes wandered tenderly to the grandstand,
where the prettiest girl of that commencement week was sitting.
"Have you forgot the 'Indian Princess'?" he asked.
"You're a dull old person," Tom laughed. "Haven't you discovered that 'tis
they who forget us? And why shouldn't they? Do we remember well?--
anybody except just us two, I mean, of course."
"I've a notion we do, sometimes."
The other set his glass on the tray, and lit his cigarette. "Yes; when
we're unsuccessful. Then I think we do."
"That may be true."
"Of course it is. If a lady wishes to make an impression on me that is
worth making, let her let me make none on her."
"You think it is always our vanity?"
"Analyze it as your revered Thomas does and you shall reach the same
conclusion. Let a girl reject you and--" Meredith broke off, cursing
himself inwardly, and, rising, cried gaily: "What profiteth it a man if he
gain the whole wisdom in regard to women and loseth not his own heart? And
neither of us is lacking a heart--though it may be; one can't tell, one's
self; one has to find out about that from some girl. At least, I'm rather
sure of mine; it's difficult to give a tobacco-heart away; it's drugged on
the market. I'm going to bring out the dogs; I'm spending the summer at
home just to give them daily exercise."