She laughed and kept glancing at Corey to make sure that he
was understanding her. When they went out on the veranda
to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the way and
Irene followed.
They did not look at the moonlight long. The young
man perched on the rail of the veranda, and Irene took
one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where she could
conveniently look at him and at her sister, who sat
leaning forward lazily and running on, as the phrase is.
That low, crooning note of hers was delicious; her face,
glimpsed now and then in the moonlight as she turned it
or lifted it a little, had a fascination which kept his eye.
Her talk was very unliterary, and its effect seemed
hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in her funning.
She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the
characters and looks of people who had interested her,
and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice; she mimicked
a little, but not much; she suggested, and then the
affair represented itself as if without her agency.
She did not laugh; when Corey stopped she made a soft
cluck in her throat, as if she liked his being amused,
and went on again.
The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first time
since he had come from town, made haste to take the word.
"Well, Pert, I've arranged the whole thing with Rogers,
and I hope you'll be satisfied to know that he owes me
twenty thousand dollars, and that I've got security from him
to the amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his
stocks to a sale.
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