"I
don't come into it once a month. The Judge spends his evenings
here--when I don't actually force him to go out with me--and I spend
mine down in the pleasanter quarters. I have the Liscombes and the
Latimers in very often, but he never comes down if he can avoid it. They
understand he's eccentric, and we let it go at that."
She spoke with the air of being a most kindly and forbearing wife.
I followed her downstairs, pondering over points of view.
Eccentric--because he preferred wide fires and elbow-room and
outlook to Camellia's crowded and over-decorated rooms below, and
his books to Mrs. Liscombe's music and Mr. Harry Hodgson's "readings."
I felt that I knew Mrs. Liscombe and Mr. Hodgson and the rest quite
without having seen them.
* * * * *
I found, the next evening, that my imagination had not gone far astray.
Camellia's friends were certainly quite as "gay" as she had pictured
them, and gorgeously dressed. I felt, as I attempted to maintain my part
among them, like a country mouse suddenly precipitated into the society
of a company of town-bred squirrels.
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