The older man knew perfectly well that he was being a little laughed at, for his absorption in gladioli, and not minding it at all, laughed himself, peaceably.  “It would take a great deal more than a little of Vincent’s fun,” he thought, “to make me feel anything but peaceable here.”  He was quite used to having people set him down as a harmless, worn-out old duffer, and he did not object to this conception of his character.  It made a convenient screen behind which he could carry on his own observation and meditation uninterrupted.

“Here comes somebody,” said Vincent and turned his quick eyes toward the door, with an eager expression of attention.  He really must have been stumped by something in the room, thought Mr. Welles, and meant to figure it out from the owners of the house themselves.

The tall, quiet-looking lady with the long dark eyes, who now came in alone, excusing herself for keeping them waiting, must of course be Mrs. Crittenden, Mr. Welles knew.  He wished he could get to his feet as Vincent did, looking as though he had got there by a bound or a spring and were ready for another.  He lifted himself out of his arm-chair with a heaviness he knew seemed all the heavier by contrast, took the slim hand Mrs. Crittenden offered him, looked at her as hard as he dared, and sank again into the arm-chair, as she motioned him to do.  He had had a long experience in judging people quickly by the expression of their faces, and in that short length of time he had decided thankfully that he was really, just as he had hoped, going to like his new neighbor as much as all the rest of it.  He gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind Vincent.  Sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently Mrs. Crittenden was.  He observed that as usual Vincent had cut in ahead of everybody else, had mentioned their names, both of them, and was talking with that . . . well, the way he did, which people either liked very much or couldn’t abide.  He looked at Vincent as he talked.  He was not a great talker himself, which gave him a great deal of practice in watching people who did.  He often felt that he saw more than he heard, so much more did people’s faces express than their words.

He noticed that the younger man was smiling a good deal, showing those fine teeth of his, and he had one of those instantaneously-gone, flash-light reminiscences of elderly people, . . . the day when Mr. Marsh had been called away from the office and had asked him to go with little Vincent to keep an appointment with the dentist.  Heavens!  How the kid had roared and kicked!  And now he sat there, smiling, “making a call,” probably with that very filling in his tooth, grown-up, not even so very young any more, with a little gray in his thick hair, what people often called a good-looking man.  How life did run between your fingers!  Well, he would close his hand tight