Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/95

 a way I understand and like the man. Criticisms will not make any difference.'

'Then you will not mind if I say that I...' she paused, and a dark wave of anger seemed to rise up from below...'that I dislike him. I thought at least he would have a romantic exterior, like Byron, but...' she bent her head and pressed her muff against her mouth. 'If a man must be a Don Juan, he should look the part.'

Sears Ripley looked at her quizzically. A man of no moods himself, he had a gift for understanding the most changeable and moody of people, especially women.

'Was he in this afternoon?' he asked curiously.

'I don't know; I didn't see him.' The showman in him was sorry that Lanice had not appreciated Anthony Jones. But all the rest of him was glad. He could not understand the violent aversion which she evidently felt. His curiosity was intensely piqued. For the first time since the death of his wife, Prunella, he found himself thinking continuously of a woman.

Late in the evening he and Captain Jones sat in the library of Professor Ripley's Concord house drinking port and eating cake. The old mahogany table was spread with manuscripts in Arabic and with dictionaries. Ripley grew sleepy and twice suggested bed. Jones was as alive as a cat and his wide eyes glittered when the firelight caught in them. There was a delicate sense of excitement about him which, tired as Professor Ripley was, he found contagious.