“What?”

“He’d been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us—­afraid you’d see he lost his job.  But he can’t un-condemn them—­they’ve got to come down now.”

Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows.  Finally he said, “How long did they give you on that option to convince me?”

“Until two o’clock to-morrow afternoon.”

“All right,” said Sheridan, not relaxing.  “I’m convinced.”

Bibbs jumped up.  “I thought you would be.  I’ll telephone the Krivitch agent.  He gave me the option until to-morrow, but I told him I’d settle it this evening.”

Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his expression did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that startled his wife.  It had been a long time since she had heard anything resembling a chuckle from him, and this sound—­although it was grim and dry—­bore that resemblance.

She brightened eagerly.  “Looks like he was startin’ right well don’t it, papa?”

“Startin’?  Lord!  He got me on the hip!  Why, he knew what I wanted —­that’s why he had the inspector up there, so’t he’d have me beat before we even started to talk about it.  And did you hear him?  ‘Can’t reasonably defend sentiment!’ And the way he says ‘Us’:  ‘Took an option for Us’!  ’Stuff piled up on Us’!”

There was always an alloy for Mrs. sheridan.  “I don’t just like the way he looks, though, papa.”

“Oh, there’s got to be something!  Only one chick left at home, so you start to frettin’ about it!”

“No.  He’s changed.  There’s kind of a settish look to his face, and—­”

“I guess that’s the common sense comin’ out on him, then,” said Sheridan.  “You’ll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I expect.”

“Well, and he don’t have as good color as he was gettin’ before.  And he’d begun to fill out some, but—­”

Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to her, patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being still heavily bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling.  “That’s the way it is with you, mamma—­got to take your frettin’ out one way if you don’t another!”

“No.  He don’t look well.  It ain’t exactly the way he looked when he begun to get sick that time, but he kind o’ seems to be losin’, some way.”

“Yes, he may ‘a’ lost something,” said Sheridan.  “I expect he’s lost a whole lot o’ foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin’ poetry and—­”

“No,” his wife persisted.  “I mean he looks right peakid.  And yesterday, when he was settin’ with us, he kept lookin’ out the window.  He wasn’t readin’.”

“Well, why shouldn’t he look out the window?”

“He was lookin’ over there.  He never read a word all afternoon, I don’t believe.”