"I've been here only a short time, remember. Come back in six months, say, and I may have kicks in plenty."
"You may find it a bit dreary in winter--who the deuce is that girl yonder, Geoffrey?" he broke off.
They were opposite Carrington's, and down the walk toward the gate was coming the maid of the blue-black hair, and slender ankles. She wore a blue linen gown, a black hat, and her face was framed by a white silk parasol.
"She has nothing to do with your liking the town, I suppose?" he said, knowingly.
"Well, she's not exactly a deterrent--and there are half a dozen more of the same sort. Oh, on that score, Hampton's not half bad, my friend!" he laughed.
"You mean there are half a dozen of _that_ sort," with a slight jerk of his head toward Miss Carrington, "who are unmarried?"
Croyden nodded--then looked across; and both men raised their hats and bowed.
"Several--but you let them _alone_--it's not fashionable here, as yet, for a pretty married woman to have an affair. She loves her husband, or acts it, at least. They're neither prudes nor prigs, but they are not _that_."
"So far as you know!" laughed Macloud. "But my experience has been that the pretty married woman who won't flirt, if occasion offers where there is no danger of being compromised, is a pretty scarce article. However, Hampton may be an exception."
"You're too cynical," said Croyden. "We turn in here--this is Clarendon."
"Why! you beggar!" Macloud exclaimed. "I've been sympathizing with you, because I thought you were living in a shack-of-a-place--and, behold!"
"Yes, it is not bad," said Croyden. "I've no ground for complaint, on that head. I can, at least, be comfortable here. It's not bad inside, either."
That evening, after dinner, when the two men were sitting in the library while a short-lived thunder storm raged outside, Macloud, after a long break in the conversation--which is the surest sign of camaraderie among men--observed, apropos of nothing except the talk of the morning:
"You did, by damning it with faint praise."
"Your present environment--and yet, look you! A comfortable house, fine grounds, beautiful old furnishings, delicious victuals, and two negro servants, who are devoted to you, or the place--no matter which, for it assures their permanence; the one a marvelous cook, the other a competent man; and, by way of society, a lot of fine, old antebellum families, with daughters like the Symphony in Blue, we saw this morning. God! you're hard to please."