eBooks Base 2000

"I don't see
what you're driving at, Belle; I give it up," had responded the puzzled
husband. Mrs. Tucker kissed his high but foolish forehead tenderly, and
said, "I'm glad you don't, dear."
Meanwhile her second visitor had, like the first, employed the interval
in a critical survey of the glories of the new furniture, but with
apparently more compassion than resentment in his manner. Once only had
his expression changed. Over the fireplace hung a large photograph of
Mr. Spencer Tucker. It was retouched, refined, and idealized in the
highest style of that polite and diplomatic art. As Captain Poindexter
looked upon the fringed hazel eyes, the drooping raven mustache, the
clustering ringlets, and the Byronic full throat and turned-down collar
of his friend, a smile of exhausted humorous tolerance and affectionate
impatience curved his lips. "Well, you _are_ a fool, aren't you?" he
apostrophized it half audibly.
He was standing before the picture as she entered. Even in the trying
contiguity of that peerless work he would have been called a
fine-looking man.


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