Charley had resumed to Bohm, “A tax of twenty-five cents on the ton is nothing with deposits of this richness,” when his voice ceased; and looking at him to see the cause, I perceived that his eye was on John, and that his polished finger-nail was running meditatively along his thin mustache.
Hortense took the matter--whatever the matter was--in hand.
“You haven’t much time,” she said to Charles, who consulted his watch.
“Who’s coming to see me off?” he inquired.
“She’s sending him North,” Beverly answered, and then he spoke with his very best simple manner to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. “May I not walk home with you after all your kindness?”
She was going to say no, for she had had enough of this party; but she looked at Beverly, and his face and his true solicitude won her; she said, “Thank you, if you will.” And the two departed together down the shabby street, the little veiled lady in black, and Beverly with his excellent London clothes and his still more excellent look of respectful, sheltering attention.
And now Bohm pronounced the only utterance that I heard fall from his lips during his stay in Kings Port. He looked at the church he had come from, he looked at the neighboring larger church whose columns stood out at the angle of the street; he looked at the graveyard opposite that, then at the stale, dusty shop of old furniture, and then up the shabby street, where no life or movement was to be seen, except the distant forms of Beverly and Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. Then from a gold cigar-case, curved to fit his breast pocket, he took a cigar and lighted it from a gold match-box. Offering none of us a cigar, he placed the case again in his pocket; and holding his lighted cigar a moment with two fingers in his strong glove, he spoke:--
Then he got into the automobile. They all followed to see Charley off, and he addressed me.
“I shall be glad,” he said, “if you will make one of a little party on the yacht next Sunday, when I come back. And you also,” he added to John.
Both John and I expressed our acceptance in suitable forms, and the automobile took its way to the train.
“Your Kings Port streets,” I said, as we walked back toward Mrs. Trevise’s, “are not very favorable for automobiles.”