He merely grunted in reply, and sat rubbing the thick hair on the top of his head with his left hand and looking at the fire.  He had given no sign of being impressed in any manner by her exposure of Mary Vertrees’s character; but his impassivity did not dismay Sibyl—­it was Bibbs whom she desired to impress, and she was content in that matter.

“I’m sure it was all for the best,” she said.  “It’s over now, and he knows what she is.  In one way I think it was lucky, because, just hearing a thing that way, a person can tell it’s so—­and he knows I haven’t got any ax to grind except his own good and the good of the family.”

Mrs. Sheridan went nervously to the door and stood there, looking toward the stairway.  “I wish—­I wish I knew what he was doin’,” she said.  “He did look terrible bad.  It was like something had been done to him that was—­I don’t know what.  I never saw anybody look like he did.  He looked—­so queer.  It was like you’d—­” She called down the hall, “George!”

“Yes’m?”

“Were you up in Mr. Bibbs’s room just now?”

“Yes’m.  He ring bell; tole me make him fiah in his grate.  I done buil’ him nice fiah.  I reckon he ain’ feelin’ so well.  Yes’m.”  He departed.

“What do you expect he wants a fire for?” she asked, turning toward her husband.  “The house is warm as can be, I do wish I—­”

“Oh, quit frettin’!” said Sheridan.

“Well, I—­I kind o’ wish you hadn’t said anything, Sibyl.  I know you meant it for the best and all, but I don’t believe it would been so much harm if—­”

“Mother Sheridan, you don’t mean you want that kind of a girl in the family?  Why, she—­”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” the troubled woman quavered.  “If he liked her it seems kind of a pity to spoil it.  He’s so queer, and he hasn’t ever taken much enjoyment.  And besides, I believe the way it was, there was more chance of him bein’ willin’ to do what papa wants him to.  If she wants to marry him—­”

Sheridan interrupted her with a hooting laugh.  “She don’t!” he said.  “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Sibyl.  She ain’t that kind of a girl.”

“But, father Sheridan, didn’t she—­”

He cut her short.  “That’s enough.  You may mean all right, but you guess wrong.  So do you, mamma.”

Sibyl cried out, “Oh!  But just look how she ran after Jim—­”

“She did not,” he said, curtly.  “She wouldn’t take Jim.  She turned him down cold.”

“But that’s impossi—­”

“It’s not.  I know she did.”

Sibyl looked flatly incredulous.