She was by way
of being a confirmed invalid, and something about Archibald seemed to
get right in among her nerve centres, reducing them for the time being
to a complicated hash. She did not like Archibald. She said she liked
big, manly men. Behind his back she not infrequently referred to him as
a 'gaby'; sometimes even as that 'guffin'.
She did not do this to Margaret, for Margaret, besides being blue-eyed,
was also a shade quick-tempered. Whenever she discussed Archibald, it
was with her son Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant Milsom, who thought Archibald a
bit of an ass, was always ready to sit and listen to his mother on the
subject, it being, however, an understood thing that at the conclusion
of the seance she yielded one or two saffron-coloured bills towards his
racing debts. For Stuyvesant, having developed a habit of backing
horses which either did not start at all or else sat down and thought
in the middle of the race, could always do with ten dollars or so. His
prices for these interviews worked out, as a rule, at about three cents
a word.
In these circumstances it was perhaps natural that Archibald and
Margaret should prefer to meet, when they did meet, at some other spot
than the Milsom home. It suited them both better that they should
arrange a secret tryst on these occasions.
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