You've done enough."
"You needn't be afraid. I've seen the last of Rogers
for one while." He hesitated, to give the fact an effect
of no importance. "Corey's father called this morning."
"Did he?" said Mrs. Lapham, willing to humour his feint
of indifference. "Did HE want to borrow some money too?"
"Not as I understood." Lapham was smoking at great ease,
and his wife had some crocheting on the other side of the
lamp from him.
The girls were on the piazza looking at the moon on
the water again. "There's no man in it to-night,"
Penelope said, and Irene laughed forlornly.
"What DID he want, then?" asked Mrs. Lapham.
"Oh, I don't know. Seemed to be just a friendly call.
Said he ought to have come before."
Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. Then she said: "Well,
I hope you're satisfied now."
Lapham rejected the sympathy too openly offered.
"I don't know about being satisfied. I wa'n't in any
hurry to see him."
His wife permitted him this pretence also. "What sort
of a person is he, anyway?"
"Well, not much like his son. There's no sort of business
about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him.
He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache;
and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help
noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top
of his cane.
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