FORE:"What!--gone?" he asked again, and I nodded. He turned and trotted lightly after the departing column. I remember his pensive mien as he moved down the grove, and how a soft gleam flashed from his sword, above his head, as with the hand that held it he fingered his slender mustache, and how another gleam followed it as he reversed the blade and let it into its sheath. Then my eyes lost him; for Gholson had taken his place under the window and was beckoning for my attention.
FORE:The Gilmer daughters were fair, but they were only three, and the Gilmers were the sole unionists in their neighborhood. "Still, a few girls will come," said Charlotte, sparkling first blue and then black at a sparkling captain who said that, after all, the chief-of-staff had decided he couldn't attend. I know she sparkled first blue and then black, for she always did so when she told of it in later days.Now there was another subject on which Keeping had made up his mind to speak to Lord Inverbroom, and this intelligence encouraged him to do so. By purchasing the freehold of the County Club, he had acquired the right of membership, but with that streak of pride which was characteristic of him, he did not want to get elected to the Club as a right. He had, since he had made the purchase, thought this over, and wished to stand for election, could he secure a proposer and seconder, like any other candidate. That being so, he did not intend to tell Lord Inverbroom that he would, ex officio, become a member of the Club at the next quarter-day, when he entered into possession of his property, but had determined{170} to ask him if he, as president, would propose him in the ordinary course. The next election, he had already ascertained, took place early in April, when his blushing honours as benefactor to the hospital and baronet would be fresh upon him. There could be no more suitable opportunity for his request than the present.
FORE:Late as it was when Keeling went upstairs, he found a jubilant and wakeful wife waiting for him, with a positive cargo of questions and impressions which she had to unload at once. Her elation took a condescending and critical form, and she neither wanted nor paused for answers.
THREE:XXII WE SPEED A PARTING GUESTIt was not Keelings usage to take any step concerning finance or business without considering where that step would take him, though that consideration could often be condensed into a moments insight. The thought of his sudden munificence with regard to the hospital occupied his mind, when he settled down to work again, as little as did the thought of his new typist whom he had just shut up in the stuffy little chamber adjoining his own. Momentary as had been the time required for his offer, his determination to make it was but the logical next step in the secret ambition{79} which had so long been growing in his mind. Indeed his interview with Lord Inverbroom had been his opportunity no less than the hospitals, and it would have been very unlike him not to take advantage of it. But he was not going to snatch at the fruit which it would help to bring within his reach: he had no wish that the Committee or the town generally should learn the identity of the benefactor until at the opening the name of the new wing should flash on the assembled gathering. That opening must be a day of pomp and magnificence: in course of time he would talk over that with Lord Inverbroom. At present he had plenty of occupations to concern himself with. And noticing the very fluent clacking that came faintly from behind the padded door, he filed the accounts which he had found so satisfactory, and buried himself in business again.
THREE:So that he may have the pleasure of seeing you through another one this year, remarked Norah.The Clockwork man had no apparent sex.
