Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/21

Rh Their gazes held a moment, bright with insinuating lights. Then Rowe bowed.

"Very well," he said, and entered the house to summon young Taylor.

When John appeared Rowe was walking out the drive toward the street, very erect, with confidence in the sway of his shoulders. The girl had been watching him.

Taylor spoke slowly to Marcia Murray and smiled and slouched down beside her, showing an ease that was something more than familiarity with this one girl. There are men who never can be comfortable in the presence of any woman, who must always be self-conscious even before the mothers of their children; these are the men who are failures with women and who are secretly afraid and consciously inferior. On the other extreme are the men whose glances at women are always penetrating and never very curious; they have the assurance which makes for easy acquaintanceships that they take lightly and which thrill their gentler parties; they are at once fond and scornful of women, and know that the one does not live who can blind them to her weaknesses; they like to see this deception tried simply to give them justification for bringing some presumptuous female to humiliation. The chief difference between these two types of men is that now and again the former is surprised by having a triumph forced on him; quite often the latter is bewildered by a defeat. John Taylor belonged to the second group.

The car swung out to the street.

"Where away?" John asked.

She did not respond to his smile.

"You are worried," she said.

"Not much."