The Gentleman from Indiana

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."