She had shaken hands with
Roger Hapgood, and, with an invitation to him and Conniston to follow,
went ahead with her father.
For a moment the two men faced each other in silence through the
half-darkness. Then Hapgood turned upon his heel and went into the
house. In a moment Conniston followed him, smiling.
He took a chair at the side of the room and lighted a fresh cigar
while he watched the two men at table and Argyl bringing them their
supper. He saw that Mr. Crawford's manner was what it always had
been--bluff, frank, open, cheery. But he saw, too, or thought that he
saw, little lines of worry upon the high forehead which had not been
there a month ago.
Hapgood's face, seen now clearly, was as smug as ever, but there had
been wrought in it a subtle change. In place of the fresh, pink
complexion, the desert had given him a healthy coat of tan. But that,
while Conniston was quick to note it, was not the change that startled
him. There was an indefinable something in Hapgood's eyes, at the
corners of his thin-lipped mouth, that had not been there before.
Conniston wondered if the hand of this Western country had touched the
inner man as it had the outer, if the new life had found certain small
seeds of strength in the heretofore futile Hapgood and were developing
them?
Hapgood's manner, however, was unchanged, irreproachable.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233